The Fondest Heart
by America's Got Fandom
Summary: After a nostalgic vacation to Apocalypseburg goes awry, Emmet and Lucy discover that Rex didn't fade from existence quite as permanently as they thought. Now, Lucy has to choose between Emmet and Rex, knowing that whoever she doesn't choose is banned to The Can of Gar-Bage (not to be confused with The Bin of Stor-Age) for eternity. EMMETSTYLE VERSUS DANGERSTYLE
1. A Promise Lost, A Promise Found

**A/N: GUYS HELP ME THE LEGO MOVIE FANDOM AND EMMETSTYLE SHIP ISN'T LETTING ME GO. I finally finished this Fairly Odd Parents story, which gives me room for this. I don't plan for this one to be to ultra-long, especially with Remembering You and Redamancy going on, but I just REALLY wanted to do the new Lego Movie trope, the Rex-somehow-survied-the-time-machine-stuff-and-is-now-back-in-Emmet's-timeline-uh-oh. ALSO, I kind of headcanon that when Rex faded from existence, Finn put him into The Bin of Stor-Age. ALSO: This is kind of half-humanized, half-not, read it how you choose. THANKS! :)**

* * *

_You asked who I was,_

_Like I belonged to a group of outlaws._

_You didn't remember me,_

_When I had hoped you would see._

_And now, you are all I think of,_

_Lucy, my hope, my dreams, my love._

_I groan and moan, berating myself for changing._

_I toss and turn, wondering if this is dying._

_You were my world, Lucy. _

_I am Emmet Brickowski._

_Yet, I live as Rex Dangervest,_

_Trying my best,_

_To live without you,_

_But you have to know, leaving you happened much too soon._

* * *

**_Two Months after the events of Lego Movie 2_**

"LUCY!"

"WHAT?"

"I LOVE YOU!"

Whipping her head around, Lucy found the source of the sweet, sappy battle cry coming from across the plains. She could hardly see her boyfriend, it was as if the expanse of land, dust, and ruins crowded them apart, even as she could run over to him if she chose. "Love you too, babe," she muttered, giving him a small wave from where she stood.

Emmet continued running at invigorating, whiplash, break-neck-speed around the empty field while she watched and the gang unpacked. Like a toddler, cooping Emmet up inside a big, metal, flying tube for an extended period of time may not have been the best idea, especially since all his pen-up energy now exited through sprinting across the battlefields. She smiled. He was adorable either way.

The small dot that she identified as her boyfriend grew smaller, and she hollered, "Emmet, get back here! We need you to help us unpack!"

A reply of any size would not have reached her, but he began running in her direction, so she nodded. "Ok, Emmet's coming." Lucy turned to Unikitty as she unloaded a fuchsia, glittering, light-up suitcase from the jet.

"A little too late, we just got all the bags unloaded," Unikitty laughed. "It's strange being back here, isn't it?"

The nostalgic, bitter scent of dust and despair spoke for itself, Lucy noted. She had inhaled the air so many times over that five-year course, then gone without it so long. Was this nostalgia, or heartbreak? "Yeah, Apocalypseburg kinda went even farther downhill without us here."

Before Lucy could reach to grab her own tri-color suitcase, strong, sweeping arms whisked her heels off the ground and cuddled her by the waist. "Lucy! We're home!" The dust, the bugs, the darkness, none of it had the slightest effect on Emmet. He had his girlfriend, his friends, and an amazing life in general, so why should a slightly dark setting, one he had lived in for years, bother him?

Even Batman cracked a smile at Lucy's laugh. "I know, I know, are you gonna put me down?"

Smiling like a child whose attention had just been stolen away by a piece of candy, Emmet set Lucy down with a careful touch, grabbed her hand and pointed before exclaiming, "Lucy, look! It's our old apartment!"

"Wait a minute, Emmet," Metal Beard shouted, heaving himself out of the plane. "We came here to do a job, not lollygag like a bunch of lovesick teenagers."

"Uh, I resent that," Lucy replied. She paused, tugged on Emmet's hand, his wrist, then nudged him with her elbow with the quick succession of someone who has repeated the action several times over. He nudged her with his shoulder once in reply, the action barely noticed by their friends. "You're right, Metal Beard. Emmet and I are gonna go look this way."

Emmet watched out of the corner of his eye as Lucy brushed a thin, smooth lock of teal hair out of her face, a common thread that fell whenever she lied. He had never shared this fact, no matter how adorable he thought it was. "Yeah, I think The Bin of Stor-Age might be over there…"

His girlfriend nodded. "_Way _over there. We might not be back for hours, especially if we find anyone in there."

"Or even days!" Emmet slipped his hand into Lucy's and gave it a tiny jerk.

Benny, floating before them, raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you guys want to spend all that time looking over there?"

"YES."

Benny, Batman, Unikitty, and Metal Beard glanced at each other as Emmet and Lucy froze.

Relenting, Unikitty shrugged her shoulders. "Ok, well, take this," she said, handing Lucy a thin, wiry headset. "If you find it, tell us, ok?"

After a brief, unnoticeable sigh, Lucy accepted, with a moment's hesitation, the hug Unikitty offered. "Got it. Ready to go, Ems?"

The giddy, vibrating energy emitted from her boyfriend could not be hidden, and Lucy knew, from experience and good judgement, that his excitement would give them away if she didn't rescue him in a minute.

"Ok, bye, guys!" Lucy waved, threw the headset in her pocket with a sloppy shove, and grabbed her boyfriend's hand. His elation, as opposed to dissipating, shot through her like an electric shock, and they took off in the dust towards empty air, with space in every direction like an endless ocean.

"Are we almost there?" Emmet shouted above the rumbling of their own sprinting-steps and panting?

"Where are we even going?" Lucy tightened her grip around his hand, like grabbing onto a rock while scaling a mountain with wind pouring downwards. He grasped back, pulled her forward as they ran, and gave her a huge smile.

"I don't know!"

She laughed.

Never before had Lucy laughed like that. She didn't care if the whole world heard her laugh. Emmet smiled, started laughing, and halted in the cracked, worn dirt, expanding like a massive, infinite, torn cloth. His feet tripped out from underneath him, and she fell to the ground alongside him, her laughter never breaking.

Emmet gripped his arms around her, hugged her to his chest and whispered, "I love you, Lucy." The tone contrasted his previous, boisterous laughter, and she propped up against her elbows, watching and promising to remember every detail about him. The way he rubbed the dust and water out of his eyes against his faded sleeve, the neat, untouched, combed-over sweep of his hair, and that ebony, romantic gaze in his eyes that never looked generic to her.

Leaning forward, she pressed a sweet, slow kiss to his lips, the softest kiss she had ever experienced in the hardest, cruelest land. Speaking into the kiss, she murmured, "I love you too." She harbored no desire to deepen it, his presence alone offered her every loving touch she could ever need.

The kiss broke, and she bit her lip at how he, after all these years, still could hardly keep a straight face after kissing her. He always looked like a man who had just escaped a herd of fangirls.

The ground, searing and parched against sun and time, meant nothing as she shifted into his arms. "What should we do?" he whispered, pressing a loving kiss to her hair. She giggled and cuddled beneath his arm, warmth melding against heat.

_Well, you could whisk me down to where we first met and propose, but it's really fine, I've only waited half a decade._

'The question' had plagued Lucy's mind for months. They had talked about marriage, of course, that came with a 5-year long relationship. With Unikitty's help, Lucy had dropped hint after hint, bridal magazine after jewelry ad on the coffee table, all in vain.

Was he afraid of marriage? Was she too much? Did he not think he could do it? Did he not trust her?

"You ok?" Emmet tucked a strand of her waved, magenta hair behind her ear, and she gripped around his chest. "Brooding again?" The thought of the war-driven, dark-minded personality returning to his girlfriend sent a vile wave of dread over his stomach, and he held her tighter. Perhaps if he held her close enough, she would know everything was ok, and she wouldn't need to change anymore.

Lucy looked up at him, smiling. "Yeah, I'm ok. Just thinking."

"Good thoughts?"

_"Emmet Brickowski and Lucy Emerald, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride."_

Her smile widened into her flushing, taffeta cheeks, and she brushed her lips to his, imagining the glow of a church surrounding them, a gown around her figure, and a crowd cheering behind them. "Mmhm, yeah, all good thoughts."

#

"A monster truck!"

"You already said that!"

"Dang, ok… a giant phone!"

Emmet's hands flew at light-speed, grabbing whatever bricks his mind pointed to. Serial numbers in bold, flashing-white light snapped at the forefront of his mind, and he leapt from ruin to broken wall for every piece. "Done! Give me another!"

"I can't think of any!" Lucy ran through the reels of her mind for any category, any denomination, any item she hadn't already hollered at her boyfriend. "Ok, wait, a quadruple decker couch!"

"Done!"

"Office building!"

"Concert stage!"

Panting, Emmet raised a hand after placing the last brick of a massive, towering podium, fifty feet wide and a hundred feet tall. "Wait…Lucy…I need a minute…"

"You ok?" Lucy asked, stepping across the chips and cracks in the ruined mall floor. Broken, chopped walls lay around her, and her thick boot barely avoided jagged glass strewn around, reflecting moonlight into her eyes. "That was pretty intense."

Following her quiet, contemplative words, Lucy rubbed a warm, gentle hand against Emmet's shoulder. His head tilted at her touch, and he replied through ragged but recovering breath, "Thanks, I tried to be 'tough', y'know?" Teasing tagged along at the end of his voice, and he nudged her elbow, smiling.

"Ugh, that thing again?" Lucy rolled her eyes at her boyfriend's joke. Glass snapped and obsolete paper, crushed and worn, matted into the floor as she stepped closer to him. Her hand brushed with a soft-spoken touch against his, barely locking. "Haven't we been over this a thousand times?"

If any protest existed in his mind, it had no time to voice its meek opinion as Lucy leaned forward, softly kissed him, and brushed a soft lock of his hair away from his face.

If she could save the world, develop the battle-abilities to protect herself and Emmet, and keep from hitting herself over the head during it all, she could convince her boyfriend to buy a ring. "I love you, you know that, right, babe?"

_The nickname…_

The term had earned its prestigious spot in the Hall of Things that Melted Emmet's Heart early on, perhaps the first time she had used it. However, it was not without its drawbacks, as Lucy had also learned quickly. Emmet broke the kiss she had pressed forward into, eyeing her skeptically, yet stuttering through a light flush the whole time. "Lucy, wh-what are you up to? You only call me that when you want something."

Resuming the kiss, her hands found their way to his. "I wouldn't say that."

"I would," he replied through what words he could mumble into her lips. "Wh-what was I talking about again?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I."

Just as his hands wrapped around her waist, hugging her close against him, she broke the kiss on impulse. A wave threw itself over her mind, drudging every happy thought she had owned. This was not a knew feeling. This was only the first time she acted on it. "Emmet, you love me, right?"

His shoulders fell, but his hold around her only tightened. She had to appreciate how he never questioned her motives, actions, or sudden choices, which, she had to admit, happened often. "Of course, but are you ok?"

"Yeah, it's just…" Was it wrong to bring it up? Would she put him in an awkward spot? She glared at her own feet, avoiding his gaze. Now she was the immature one, always dreaming of tomorrow and wishing it could be today. "…I was wondering, I mean…"

"Hey, you can tell me, right?" Emmet gently, carefully, lay a soft kiss on Lucy's trembling lips. "I'm always here for you."

"Emmet…"

"We do everything together, remember? We're a team."

"Emmet, look."

"Are you ok? Your eyes are all big. I mean, it's cute, but you look kinda terrified."

Lucy broke into her boyfriend's rambling, revolved his view by the shoulder, and held him to look up at a massive, denim, mountain of a box, from another world yet as terrifying as the fear at two in the morning when a howl screams out in the night. The box cast a shadow too large to see the end or the beginning of, the edges fading away miles past where they stood. "Emmet, it's…"

"…The Bin of Stor-Age." Emmet's quivering, clammy hand of artic fear clamped on Lucy's, and he wasn't sure if her grip back meant he had nothing to fear, or if he had every reason to be afraid. "I…I can't believe it's here. Should we go look?"

Maybe it wouldn't be bad. Maybe they wouldn't find anything. Maybe they would go in, find out it was empty, and go on with the vacation. "Yeah," she replied, swallowing down the scratching, grainy quake in her throat. "We came here to check it out, right?"

"Don't let go of my hand, please?" Any insecurities about his nervous, occasionally cowardice had melted away long ago, leaving behind a fiery desire to protect and be protected.

She gripped tighter, and they took the first step towards the peak. "Of course."

The box seemed to grow closer on its own with every step they took, as if it knew how they dreaded opening it. Their miniscule, insignificant steps dragged them along like children to the dentist. Speed meant nothing. They were going to get there, no matter when.

Too soon, much too soon, in Emmet's opinion, they halted at the beginning of the wall. It soared into the stars, seeming to lay just at the moon's edge. "Uh, should we build to get up there?"

"Yeah," she replied. She motioned to a nearby building, cracked in half and still rumbling, and he followed her in quiet, sober attitude towards it. "Ready?" Lucy bent down, one hand and knee on the ground, her frazzled mind unsure whether or not to produce instructions and show her serial numbers, or run screaming into her boyfriend's arms.

Lucy winced at the way Emmet's shoulder's trembled, the unsteady quiver in his breath, and the sheepish, lying way he rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, I'm good."

With a nod, they set to work.

Emmet grabbed a piece, followed by Lucy's, then he would place one, and so on, all of this repeating at least three times within the course of one second. Within a minute, they had built a grand, towering, rickety staircase, about halfway up to the flat, sharp lid.

Just as Lucy went to slam down another step on the structure, Emmet went for the same part. "Sorry," they mumbled in unison. The apology only met the air when they had moved on to other pieces, and since then even more.

Lucy's hands hesitated as she went for more bricks. _We messed up? We're always in sync. _"You ok?" she panted, crashing four more pieces onto the staircase, now wobbling and shuddering as if the cold, numbing breeze was too much for it to handle, either from fright or lack of spine.

"Uh, yeah." Emmet paused. He couldn't make his mouth and hands work at the same time. One or the other. He paused, stood at the top, and asked just loud enough for her to hear, "You?"

At whiplash pace, Lucy continued placing brick after brick on their creation. "Uh-huh."

_She knows what she's doing._

Face searing and crimson, Emmet leapt back down to grab more pieces, and back up to the dizzy, unsteady structure, only growing thinner and thinner as they built up to the top. Bricks flew out of his hand faster than he could push them down, and Lucy built right next to him, until one, small, six-peg brick hit the smooth, frosted, arctic lid. It burned with the type of cold one only achieves by leaving something in a secluded, underdeveloped room for a lingering amount of time.

Emmet gulped for breath, and some comfort shushed him when he saw Lucy seemed equally out of breath. "That was…" he sat on the precarious, jagged edge of the bin, staring down at their faint structure.

A hand met his, and he gripped it tightly. His girlfriend's head lay on his shoulder. "…harder than normal."

"Yeah."

Despite her mind, having existed in this situation before, warning her to not look, Lucy took the smallest, safest peek she could at their work. A brick lay out of place there, the sloppy framework mocked her, at least fifteen bricks lay scattered around the staircase. All the mistakes were hers.

"We can do better than that," Lucy murmured.

"I was nervous."

While his voice had not displayed any negative emotions, guilt and shame splashed across the half of his face she could see, and he hid his gaze from her. "I…I wasn't thinking straight, I just don't know what we're going to find in here."

Pressing a warm kiss to his cheek, Lucy replied, "I was nervous too. I don't want to go in there."

"Really?"

"Really."

Finally, Emmet cracked a smile. "We'll do it together, right?"

She didn't know how much she had missed his optimism until it was gone. She never did. "Yeah," she said through a smile. "Together."

After Emmet helped Lucy stand up, for chivalry purposes, they stared at the lid beneath their feet, mocking and pointing its finger at them. Emmet rubbed the back of his neck, eyeing the edges of the lid behind him. "Uh, I just realized that we're kind of on top of the lid we're supposed to take off."

"Here, take this."

"ACK!"

Practice and sheer repetition of working with Lucy had prepared him for moments like this, moments when she threw shop objects at him and trusted he could catch them, even when he flinched every time. "What do we do with this?" he asked, eying the piercing, corner brick in his hand, matching Lucy's. He giggled, "Hey, Lucy, we're matching!"

If anyone knew when to make a joke to lift her spirits, it was, and always would be, Emmet. "I made sure of it. Here, come with me."

Emmet followed her as she stepped, after testing the waters, onto the quivering structure, swaying and blowing with the wind. After a moment, where more of the lip-biting came from Emmet, Lucy smiled and whispered, "It's fine, come on."

Shaking his head, Emmet motioned to the shuddering staircase she stood on. "Get off that thing."

"Huh?"

"You're going to fall."

It was sweet, the way he protected and cared for her, but at the same time, she had to keep them moving. Goodness knows he could be as stubborn as her, and the frost of the night would stop their circulation if she let him fight her on this. She grabbed his hand, yanked him onto the structure, and rolled her eyes as he clung to her, even as the act painted pink on her cheeks. "Then we'll both fall. Together, right?"

While Emmet seldom owned any attitude, once in a while, it showed. He raised an eyebrow and titled his head. "You're gonna use that against me now?"

Grabbing his wrist and guiding him to stick the triangular brick under the lid, and doing the same with hers, Lucy replied, "Yup. Now push."

He did as instructed, and they both slammed their bricks into the wedge between the lid and the bin, until it gave with a snap that rumbled like an earthquake around the bin for a solid minute after.

"Woah."

"Yeah."

Musky, ancient-scented dust wafted into their breaths, yet all they could see in the sliver was pure, total, oily darkness. No movement, no light, nothing shone out, not even a shadow. Their pieces fell from the wedge, and they could have held a full conversation before they hit the ground with a tiny, piercing clank. They imagined that, if they fell, it would make a similar sound.

Emmet gulped. "Should we get in there?"

"Yeah."

Grabbing his hand, Lucy whisked them onto the lid, then maneuvered, with some difficulty, into the box, her hand still on the spiked, jagged edges. She held out her other hand to Emmet. "Come on, it's only pitch-black darkness, how bad can it be?"

"Very, very bad, I'm guessing," he replied, grabbing her hand. It was warm, steady, calm and constant. She never faltered, even as he trembled climbing down next to her. He only gripped her hand tighter as his grasp on the bin weakened and slipped, as if holding onto her could save his life. "What do we do now?"

"Great question." Lucy peered down to the bottom, and if she squinted, closed one eye, blinked the other, and lied to herself, she could see the beginning of bricks was not far below them. "We jump."

"_What?"_

"We'll be fine, the bottom is practically right below us!"

"Lucy, I don't call fifty-feet 'right below!'"

Reaching up, Lucy unhinged his trembling grip from the bin, and he clutched onto her hand, his only connection and protection from the full, merciless force of gravity. "You trust me, right?"

"I trust you, it's gravity I don't trust!"

Even as their lives hung in an obsolete, dusty, murky ocean of bricks and obscure matter, Lucy smiled at her boyfriend. "Gravity's on my side, Ems."

In a split-second decision, Emmet chose to voice in thoughts, ones he probably should have kept silent. "My girlfriend, master of physics and all matter."

Lucy smirked, and replied in a gentle voice that tapped the bottom of the bin, "Well, just for that, _sweetie…" _

Emmet gulped.

Lucy let go.

"AH! LUCY, I'M SORRY, PLEASE, DON'T DO THIS TO ME, I LOVE YOU, I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!"

"Emmet–"

"TELL UNIKITTY SHE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE GLITTER, I ACCIDENTLY PUT IT ON THE CUPCAKES, IT WASN'T A STROKE OF GENUIS!"

"EMMET!"

"Huh?"

Lucy pushed herself up off the sharp, jutted bricks, finding a smooth place to stand, right on top of a thick, eight-peg brick. "We're fine. We fell."

After a brief, doubtful moment, Emmet cracked his eyes open, and darkness shook his hand and offered to sell him life insurance, a deal he would have made on the spot. "Lu-Lucy? We have a way to get out of here, right?"

"We have bricks, that's good enough for me." Lucy dug into her pocket and found the headset Unikitty had given her, the source of the only light in the bin emitted from a small, circular, blinking red light. "It's almost out of charge. Unikitty? Are you there?"

There was no reason for Emmet to stand there as his girlfriend tried to work the contraption, so he did what he did best:

Explored.

A sense of fun existed in wandering through the dusky, tangible, oily darkness, so thick he could wave his arms though it and feel dust scratching his hands. Emmet imagined that if it weren't for all the grainy dust and musk, he could see three steps in front of him. The even collection of bricks flattened out into an almost-smooth transition across, yet he had no idea if the wall of the bin stood right in front of him, or ran farther and farther with each step. "Lucy?" His cry echoed back at him off the walls, and he spoke slowly to savor the effects. "Is Unikitty on the headset?"

"I just lost her, the stupid thing died," she replied, an unknown distance apart. Emmet guessed a few feet, Lucy assumed nearly a mile in the opposite direction. "Where did you go?"

No response echoed back.

"Emmet?" It was unlike him to play a joke on her, and the possibility fled her mind as quick as it had come. "Emmet, come on, this isn't funny." Attitude and early, immature annoyance choked her voice, and she crossed her arms over her chest, staring down at the ground like he reflected at her.

Her chest tightened. Was her heart still beating? A hand raised to where the saving grace was supposed to drum steadily on, and a faint, rapid hum tapped back. "Emmet!"

Nothing but her own cry echoed in return.

Now, she was sure of it, her heart had frozen in her chest.

Her steps collapsed on each brick as she ran in any direction she chose, turning and whirling in foolish hope that her boyfriend would somehow pop up, smiling and waving, exclaiming that he had only played a trick on her.

The next step she took never hit the ground, as frigid, hard hands grabbed her wrists, spun her around, and dead eyes stared into the tornado of her soul. The eyes she faced softened, the hands melted, and every muscle relaxed. She had never seen a more broken individual. Concrete, bloodshot crimson coursed through his darting eyes. He smelled of musk and terror. He grinded his teeth. His cold hands shook as they bound tightly to her wrist.

"Rex?"


	2. A Legendary Choice

**A/N: YO! Thanks SO much for the reviews! Sorry this update took so long, I had to take a mini-hiatus. And XD, don't worry, this thing is terrifying me too. Btw, I have no idea how 'being in shock' works in the medical sense, so bear with me here lol. THANKS FOR READING!**

* * *

The eyes, swamped in blood and time, darted from faded wall to vibrant brick to Lucy, never staying in one spot for longer than a second. He shivered, he trembled like a bomb ticked right below his feet, and his shuddering slithered onto Lucy as he gripped her wrists.

"Lucy?" He bit back at how his own voice cracked, curling away from her and loosening the death-grip, before climbing back and squeezing tighter. "Wh-where are we?"

"You don't know?" Lucy asked, like asking if a child really didn't know the answer to a very simple problem. No woman could look at the lifeless glint in his eyes, feel the icy touch of his hands, breath in the scent of dust and time he had endured, or listen to that raspy, cracking, dry voice without wincing, without making some sort of repulsed face, or showing some of the disgusting pity that lay beneath the surface.

After a pause, Rex vibrating his head in a way of an answer, and his grip growing ever tighter, Lucy nodded, like she understood. She nodded like she knew what he meant. She nodded like she knew what to do. Ha! How could she know what to do? He was broken. He hated her. She could do nothing except make it worse, like she had always done.

"It's going to be alright, ok?" Her voice had dropped, not in tone, but in volume, as though some monster lurked, crawling and plotting against them beneath their feet, and she continued whispering to him, "I'm here, you don't have to be afraid."

"I'm…n-not…" The lie almost tasted good on his tongue.

Even as tangible night covered her, Rex could still make out the smirk, the smirk she tried to smile through. "I can see that."

No words came to mind as she gently, like a mother, rubbed her hands around his wrists, caressing and smoothing over the rough scars of time, her hands warm and soft. "It's ok," she kept whispering, shushing him occasionally, as she continued to rock him closer and closer to sanity. "I'm right here."

"Y-you…" He tried to tell her, he tried to voice his protests, he tried to tell her that for years she _hadn't _been there, that she had abandoned him, that now, it made no difference if she was with him or a thousand miles away. If he had changed, lost his life, lost her, what was the difference if she provided a few words of comfort now?

"Shush, it's ok." Lucy words ran smoothly over the dust and musk of the air, and her hands slid up his wrists to his shoulders, where he froze, hard as a plank, until she gently, carefully, inched him closer to her. At first, he eyed her like a puppy in a new home, shaking his head through his quivering frame. His teeth chattered as he froze harder. What was she doing?

Her hands pressed against his back, and his eyes shot open, like an adult who had no affection as a child finally getting a kiss on the cheek. Was this…affection a good thing? Was she going to grab his wrist and slam him to the ground in a second? "L-Lucy?" he questioned her motives, but she merely shushed him again, and tugged him closer until he pressed up against her, her arms around his torso, and his arms lazily at the side.

"It's called a hug, Rex. Remember this?"

No. No, he didn't. He didn't remember what a hug was. When people aren't hugged in years, they forget those sorts of things.

The grip around his waist was arm, tight and soft, and for some reason he didn't want to know, he liked it.

Before she thought better of it, a premise he assumed very plausible, Rex reached his arms around her thin frame and hugged her as tight as he could without breaking her.

Emmet, Emmet, Emmet. Nothing had been the same since she met that man. Other women led normal lives. She led a life of crazy adventures, alternate-timeline boyfriends, and friends who married shapeshifting queens. She lived in a house with a double-decker porch swing, a cat-unicorn with temper issues, and a boyfriend who could cook every master chef out the building. Other women got married, stayed home–

Got married.

Lucy clutched Rex tighter, digging her hands into his side and burying her head into his shoulder.

The human contact – even his human contact – gave her something new. Something she didn't have. It gave her a broken individual to hold to comfort, someone who needed her help. Someone who looked up to her.

"Lucy!"

Tearing away from the hug, Lucy swiveled around to find Emmet embracing her tightly. She stared at him.

"Are you ok?" His voice clouded around the dust as he held her tighter, and Rex stood, some ways off, watching. Lucy stared at him.

Emmet's warm, comforting hands rubbed against her back, and she leaned into his touch, resting her head on his shoulder. Like resting in bed before school started, the longer she lay in his arms, the more she never wanted to leave. Her arms curled around his neck, and she held him as tight as she could, where he couldn't see her blink her tears back.

"Rex?" Emmet's voice reached the top of the bin when he saw his alternate-future self, and he froze in Lucy's arms. The warmth drained from his skin as he pulled away, and though she tugged lightly on his sleeve, he pulled back.

_Don't leave me._

"Rex, you're ok!" Emmet exclaimed, running to his Vest-friend and tackling him in a massive hug. Rex merely lay there, cold as a corpse and death in his eyes. Emmet paused and waved a hand before his unresponsive friend's face. "Uh, _are _you ok?"

"He's in shock, I think," Lucy muttered, her voice weighed down by thick tears she had to swallow down. Her hand ran over Rex's arm and down to his wrist, before crawling across to his palm, where she paused. She couldn't. Not with Emmet here. But, was it something to hide?

"Hey," Emmet whispered, gently tapping her shoulder. Her gaze lifted from Rex's glazed eyes to Emmet's sparkling, dark-chocolate ones, and he gently mumbled, "I think he'd like if you held his hand."

Immediately, possibly too soon, Lucy nodded and let her hand fall into Rex's. It was rough, cold and worn from whatever he had endured down here. However, as Lucy opened her mouth, Rex's hand curled around hers, tight and unrelenting.

Emmet giggled. "Aw, he likes you!"

"Yeah…" Lucy replied, her words but a murmur through her unmoving lips.

"GUYS!"

As if the sun had lifted the lid itself, a sliver of clear-cut, fierce, immense sunlight shot through the dust and darkness, pushing it away bit by bit until burning away at Emmet and Lucy's eyes. They looked away reflexively, but the voice, much like one would imagine the Sun's voice, hollered out to them, "Come on, we're throwing down a rope!"

Again, through the crack in the night sky above them, the end of a rope descended, landing neatly in Lucy's lap. "I guess we climb, huh?"

Nodding, Emmet stood up, cracked his back with a smirk, and replied, "Stand back, little lady, I've got this."

Laughing like a child, Lucy leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on Emmet's lips, as she often did.

Emmet's dazed face only gave her more reason to smile. "Uh, what was that for?"

"You're adorable, that's why. Now come on, help me build something to get Rex up," Lucy said, motioning to the deep, murky, solid ocean of bricks and pieces they stood on.

A sigh muttered from Emmet's side. "Can we do it?"

Her hand around his was warm, he noted, as she grasped comfort around his wrist. Emmet looked from their hands, their interlocking, promised, bonded hands, to her eyes, the same eyes that looked at him every morning and every night like he was the most special person in the world. "Of course we can do it, Ems."

After a brief nod, a kiss on his cheek, and a moment of blushing, they muttered their count and set off to work. Emmet couldn't fail her. Not because it would embarrass him, not because he would lose her, not because he had trained repeatedly, but because it wasn't a choice. He could not fail.

Brick after brick, colorful pattern after vivid contrast fell around the rope, building a tub or box of sorts, with the thin cable as an anchor. Even in the flashes of milliseconds when their eyes locked, Emmet found the space to smile, and as his girlfriend blushed her smile back, he nearly started to cry. But he didn't, because he still had some dignity left, after all, and if he was going to cry, it would be best to do it when they were alone, when Lucy could kiss him and make it better. That was his favorite time to cry.

Lucy placed the last brick down, clicking it into place, before a large sigh of a hard-moment's work breathed over her lips. "That may be our fastest one yet, huh?"

"Twenty-three seconds, which almost beats twenty-one point five." At his girlfriend's dumbfounded expression, Emmet shrugged and mumbled, "I keep track."

She offered him a well-meaning smirk as they moved to help Rex, still unmoving and in a dreamy, lost-land state of unconsciousness, into their creation. "Where were these great math skills when I had to do taxes?"

"Remembering numbers is a _lot _different than whatever that tax stuff was, besides, we have Unikitty for that!" Emmet laughed. He stood back, helping Lucy step into the booth, one hand on her arm and the other on her back, gently guiding her in. "You ok?"

While she nearly told him that she didn't need any help, Lucy shrugged and replied, "Yeah, thanks."

After Emmet hopped in after her, she shouted up to Unikitty they were ready, and wrapped her arm around him, Lucy muttered, "I honestly did not think our vacation would go like this."

The enclosure rocked as it kissed goodbye to gravity, wobbling with uncertain confidence as they lifted higher and higher, tapping the edge every moment. Lucy reached her hands around Emmet's middle and leaned stiffly into his chest, but his kiss on the back of her head told her she had not succeeded in lying. "We'll be ok, I promise."

"Thanks."

The moment the booth hit the open air, sunlight unleashed its full wrath on the trio, burning away at skin and heating the bin's plastic like a trap for unsuspecting passersby. "Remind me that I like _cold _climates, Ems." Lucy shielded her eyes from the sun as the gang shifted their rope-system, swung the booth to the right, and began lowering them to the ground. Their staircase stood, cracking at the seams and wobbly, but still standing, though Lucy would never understand the physics why.

As their friends crowded around them when they collapsed on the ground, Emmet exclaimed, "Lucy, I think he's coming out of it!" Emmet tugged at the back of her hoodie, and she flipped over, with a moment's hesitation. She looked down at Rex. He was broken. Cold, tired, afraid, pathetic. He gripped Emmet's hand in his half-conscious state, like when one doesn't know what they're doing in the first breaks of dawn, and end up grabbing onto a stuffed animal. Embarrassing, but the most comforting thing in the world.

"Rex?" Emmet shook his friend by the shoulder, and Lucy switched her gaze from Rex to Emmet. His eyes, red and blinking rapidly, betrayed his set jaw and clenched shoulders, like he had something to prove, something to lie about. She needed him to be weak. She needed him to fall apart, at least a little. She didn't want him to be strong, not now.

Then she wouldn't be the only one.

"Lucy, it's ok." Emmet sweet, sugary voice gently woke her form her dream, like a mother rocking an infant awake, and he wormed his hand into her clenched fist. His warm, gentle, strong hand clutched as she gripped him, tighter than she thought he could stand, but not tight enough.

"Woah, is that…Rex? Unikitty skidded to a stop as she poked her head out from behind MetalBeard, Batman, and Benny. She stared at Rex like she had just walked into an advanced algebra class.

As Unikitty's confusion melted, Rex twitched in his almost-sleep state, his hand failed in Emmet's grip, and he began to mumble like reading from a diary, "Lu…Lucy…"

Lucy slammed her eyes shut.

_It's your fault._

Rex stirred, shifting against the hot plastic.

_You did this to him._

His eyes creaked open.

_You were supposed to protect him._

"I TRIED!"

Lucy's breath hitched.

Her eyes reignited like a wild fire in the forest, and she searched for Emmet's eyes, the only ones that wouldn't judge her.

"Lucy, breathe."

The words had not come from Emmet, and when she looked to her boyfriend, he merely tilted his head towards the left where Rex lay, like a patient waiting, expecting, accepting death. His dark chocolate eyes, they were too similar to Emmet's. They looked exactly the same, every shade and every tint, every tilt of his head and twitch of his hand, every mannerism and motion, she had seen Emmet do it all. Caring about her was just another similarity.

"Rex, how do you feel?" Emmet asked, one hand holding onto Rex's wrist like a lifeline, and the other running along Lucy's forearm, steadying the jumping nerves that lay just below her veins, pricking her skin with an itching vengeance. He had to keep them safe. The both of them.

Emmet looked to Lucy.

He shifted it back to Rex.

Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, Emmet promised himself:

_I'll take care of them._

"Ugh, my head hurts, but other than that, I feel pretty ok," Rex replied, raising his voice a little as he searched Lucy's desolate, unresponsive face, watching a dimension no one but her could see. He recognized that face. She was brooding, but why? Hadn't she given that up? He had assumed she would, after all, if she had Emmet, why did she need to brood?

"Uh, are you _sure _you feel alright?" Unikitty's eyes darkened like a dense, evening storm cloud, and she stuttered backwards, bumping into MetalBeard, whose face did not provide any comfort.

At her words, Rex looked down at himself. "What, I feel–"

Clear, slimy, mystical liquid entrenched Rex's leg, fizzing it out one minute and reviving the next.

"ACK, REX, LUCY, GET IT OFF ME!" Emmet screeched, and his hand tore from Lucy's as he desperately tried to scrub the substance, or lack thereof, off his right leg. As his hand fell through the space where his leg had once lived, he screamed and backed away from his flickering appendage like it was a rat with five legs. "Lucy, Lucy, LUCY!" He hollered for his girlfriend like a child for his mother.

"Emmet, calm down!" Lucy's prized, warrior instincts kicked into high-gear, stealing the controls away from her weary heart. She picked up Emmet's leg as it blinked in-and-out of reality, accelerating the time between fading, as Unikitty looked over Rex's.

Benny bent down by his friend, but his words crashed through the whole city, "It's…it's the same one that's disappearing on Rex!"

"Wait, I think they're morphing!"

"That's stupid, they're dying!"

"No, you're both wrong, they're COMBINING!"

"SHUT UP!" Lucy screamed. She had no reason to lift her gaze up at them, they understood her tone at first holler, and she swallowed down her temper for her boyfriend's sake. "Emmet, how does it feel?"

"Like…like it's coming back," Emmet replied, a ghost of his voice whispering through his lips. He paused, still separated as far as possible from his limb, and the moments of silver, eerie vanishing grew farther apart and shorter. Lucy looked to Rex, where the same phenomenon took place, and by the time she turned back to Emmet, his leg had stabilized in the real world.

Rex wiggled his leg, paused, and stretched it. "It's good."

Emmet winced. "Blah, that was disgusting!"

"What…what was that?" Batman asked, more towards Lucy, as if she would know.

Rolling her eyes pointedly at her ex, Lucy replied with a grit scratching her throat, "I wouldn't know, Batman, I'm not a space-time continuum scientist!"

"This be very, very bad," MetalBeard whispered. He towered above everyone, like impending doom, and for a moment, Lucy assumed he was.

"What, what's bad?" Emmet asked, his hand clutching Lucy's once more. He shifted in his spot towards his girlfriend, curling up against her lap and burying his face in her hoodie, still weary of touching or using his leg.

Lucy hated emotions, she decided, as her cheeks lit on blazing, unquenchable fire at the sweet, calm feeling of her boyfriend snuggling out of fear into her, clutching around her waist. Her hand ran over his back in a gentle motion, partially for her own nerves, in circles and fantastical shapes, an act he had told her soothed him.

Now, you have to understand, her eyes had not meant to fall on Rex, it just…happened.

He stared at her like a boy, no older than eighth grade, watches his first girlfriend kiss another boy on the cheek, and not just any boy, but his best friend of seven years.

The purposeful, firm, clear glance down at her hand shot a rocket through her throat.

His gaze lifted up to her. _Can I? Please? _

Lucy looked up to MetalBeard and clutched her boyfriend tighter as a way of an answer.

_No._

"Wh-what's the bad thing?" Emmet repeated, trembling from his girlfriend's embrace.

Metal Beard sighed. "It just be a pirate legend, it might not even matter…"

"Have these other pirate legends come true?" Lucy looked down at Emmet. The only one who had ever truly loved her for her. She had hurt him, she had hurt him repeatedly, yet he still cared for her, deeper than before. She had often wondered what 'true love' was, then ignored the thought like a dirty idea. It must have been a marketing technique used by card companies, right? True love was too good to be true.

Lucy, even in front of the crowd, bent down and pressed a slow, warm kiss to her boyfriend's forehead. "I'll protect you. I promise," she muttered, quick enough as she kissed him that no one would hear, so it would be their secret, so she would have to keep it.

Coughing, MetalBeard waved his hand. "Well, yeah, sorta every time. I have the legend here."

The group watched, silent as an abandoned home on the tip of a forgotten forest, as MetalBeard pulled out a large book, no thicker than an inch and covered in dust, where it formed a thick, even coat right over the edges. He began to read from it, his voice quivering and cracking in his throat, "There will one day be a man, who will fall in love with a woman with hair of teal and magenta–"

Emmet smiled and broke in, still weary and buried into his girlfriend's arms, "Hey, Lucy, that sounds like you!"

Metal Beard did not hush him, instead looked at him like one looks at a child going to get a shot that the doctor promises 'won't hurt a bit,' even as he sobs. As the space quieted around them, and even the dust settled, Metal Beard read without looking at his friends, "…In an alternate world, he will lose her. These two alternate men will one day meet, and one will fade away again, bitter and cold. If the first finds and saves the alternate from this fate, the woman will suffer, and have to choose between them.

"One will love her for her, love her for everything she is, but hesitate and hate for doing it. The other will love to be loved, love to love, but cannot live without her. She will have seven days, 168 hours, to choose. The unchosen will fade The Can of Gar-Bage, never to be seen again, to be killed. If she chooses neither, both will fade and perish, and she will live her life alone."

_No._

Lucy tore away from her boyfriend, the one she promised to protect, ripped away from her friends, the ones who promised to protect her, ripped away from Rex, the one she had failed to protect, and ran as fast as her battered feet would carry her into the city, Emmet and Rex trailing behind.


	3. Best Friends

**A/N: THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS! You're da best! Oh, and Vincent, as for your question, yes, I'm continuing Redamancy, I'm taking it to at least 25 oneshots :).**

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Lucy was running away. A coward, a fool, weak and incapable, she was running away, and for once, that was good. She deserved to run away. As the ground pounded a steel hammer from the core of the earth up to the soles of her feet, as the wind dragged a tear away from her face, and when she finally hit the outskirts of the city, she couldn't be bothered to worry where Emmet was, or if Rex was going to do something terrible, where her friends were, anything. She didn't care.

_You have to choose._

No, no, no! She wasn't going to think about it! If she could shove the thoughts out, get them as far away from her as possible, then she wouldn't have to think about them.

The buildings of the city either towered, weary but trying, or collapsed at her feet, dead and exhausted from the life they had endured. The farther, the deeper she got into the heart of the city, more sleeping buildings crawled at her feet, more graffiti greeted her, the roads cracked under her wobbling steps more often, and even the wind seemed to give in as it reached these depths. When had Apaocsyeubrg gone so downhill?

Something snapped behind her, like a twig in the woods, and Lucy whipped around.

Rex.

The man before her, the one she had broken, her test subject, practically, stared at her with eyes that reminded her too much of Emmet. She stood feet from him, though his eyes hung against his dangerously exhausted face, the sweat tracing his face, the blood out of his lip, but those eyes. Those were the same eyes that sat with her for movie nights, that hugged her after a long day, the same eyes she loved.

While she must have looked like a caged animal, perhaps a dying, rabid one at that, she encouraged it, shaking her head and trembling backwards. "Rex, go away."

A difference, however, in their eyes lay in his actions. Emmet would have left at her command, whereas Rex only stepped closer. Or…maybe Emmet would have done the same thing.

Rex stuttered, merely a step in front of her, and their eyes locked and remained locked.

What was he supposed to do? In the past years, he had gone from loving to hating to adoring to loving too much, and now she was here, hurting, because of him.

_You stupid fool._

He bit down on his lip. No, stupid people didn't want things to be fixed. They didn't want things to turn out ok, however that was.

"Rex," Lucy whimpered. The word broke any thoughts he could form in half, and he stared, yet again, into those eyes. Those stupid eyes. He had fallen too hard, too fast, too much for her. Maybe it would have been better if he had never met her! Yes, his life was fine until then!

Her frame shook, like a terrible fever had struck her in the middle of the night. She shivered, her lips quivered, and like facing a tree about to crash to the ground, Rex knew his girlfriend, because he wasn't about to use 'ex', was about to cry.

_Try it, what do you have to lose?_

Rex took a breath, raised his arms out to her, and watched as Lucy tore past him, ran down the street, and collapsed, sobbing, into Emmet's arms.

_You stupid fool._

Emmet clutched his girlfriend almost as tightly as she gripped onto him, running his hands up her back to press her against him. She bawled into his shoulder, and something, perhaps adrenaline, kicked into his system so he wouldn't' freak at the sight of his girlfriend, whom he had only seen weep, sob into him. The adrenaline, let's call it, prevented him from thinking about himself. He didn't think about dying by next week. He didn't think about watching Lucy choose Rex. He didn't think about anything except Lucy. And…he was proud of himself for doing so.

"Ems…I…I can't…" she cried into him, trembling and quaking as she moaned, "I'm...I'm scared…

"I know, but we're right here for you, ok?" Emmet whispered, pressing a warm kiss to her cheek. "It's ok. I love you."

"Say it again."

"I love you."

"Promise?"

"Yup."

"I love you too."

As Lucy's sobs turned to hiccupping tears, and she gripped Emmet tighter, he spotted Rex, lonely and rejected, across the street, looking like a man who had just been turned down after an elaborate marriage proposal. Broken.

As soon as Rex's gaze met Emmet's, he motioned to come over, and at that, Rex seemed to forget his shattered heart, picking up confusion. Emmet beckoned him again, and tentatively, stuttering and hesitating as he did, Rex walked over to the pair.

"What do you want?" Rex mouthed, as if Lucy lay asleep in Emmet's arms as opposed to sobbing.

Emmet mouthed back, calm and sober, "Hold her."

No man had ever looked so shocked, confused, and utterly terrified.

Shaking his head fervently, Rex backed away again, mouthing incomprehensible reasons at Emmet. However, for once, Emmet didn't care what other people wanted, and he gave Rex a stare so hard he flinched.

_Come on, what could happen?_

Rex looked at Lucy, sobbing quietly now, but still unwilling to bring her face out of Emmet's soaking shoulder, as if she could hide from her problems in Emmet's embrace. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. She looked pitiful. Terrified.

After a moment, Rex walked over, wrapped his arms around Lucy's frame and rested his hands on her shoulders.

Much to the guys' surprise, Lucy let her hands fall, one into Emmet's grip, and the other into Rex's.

Emmet smiled. "See?" he whispered to Rex, like the three of them huddled under a tent for a sleepover as little kids. "I told you she likes you."

Turning his gaze down, Rex looked at his hand, rough and scratched, stained with blood from too much bravery and worn from too much breaking, interlocked with Lucy's perfect, thin, warm hand. He gripped tighter. Would this be the last time he held her hand ever again, or the first of many?

Rex's eyes widened.

Maybe she would choose him.

As his eyes traveled up her hand towards her face, Rex suddenly had to kick the urge to kiss her way down deep, where he had thrown his rebelling empathy, love, heart, sympathy, and every emotion that he had seen no use for. If she chose him, did that mean he would get everything back? He would get Lucy, he would get his friends, his family, his life back.

Across him, Emmet shushed and rubbed Lucy's shoulder, running his hand through her hair. Emmet caught Rex's eyes, and smiled like any friend would, nodding gently as if to say, 'You did the right thing', like Emmet would.

Rex hugged Lucy as tight as he could.

Emmet smiled softly again, shushed his girlfriend's cries, and hugged her once more.

The three, interlocked in more ways that they knew, stood in the heart of the city, where two very special people had first held hands, and hugged each other until the sun gave its duties to the moon.

#

"Don't you hate me?"

Emmet sighed.

In his years of dating Lucy, he had seen practically every mood she had. Happiness, elation, love, sadness, rage, terror, he had stuck by her for the good and the bad. While he loved and cherished talking to her, when she fell into one of her 'pathetic' moods, nothing he said or did seemed to convince her of whatever she doubted, he simply had to wait it out until she felt better.

"Why would I hate you?" Normally, Emmet would have replied with a definite 'of course not' but since that had never worked, an alternate route may have been the only option.

His girlfriend shot him a distrustful, pouting, ticked off look from the couch of their hotel room, curtesy of Unikitty's ever-growing Master-Building skills. She made no movement as he sat next to her, wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders, and gently kissed her cheek. "So, you _do _hate me."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant."

It took too much self-control, Emmet noted, to not groan at his special best friend.

"What would make you feel better?" Emmet asked, using his favorite question in the world. It worked quite well for him, and always had in the past, because they had a pact: Lucy would be totally honest and tell him what would actually make her feel better, and Emmet would, somehow, do it.

Lucy paused for a moment in contemplative, deep thought as her boyfriend's hands gently massaged her arm, and she slowly melted into his embrace. He pulled a blanket over her legs. She curled up against him. He ran a hand through her hair. She sighed despite herself.

"If Rex had never...if we didn't…if you…"

At her own miserable attempt to communicate, Lucy groaned and clutched her boyfriend tighter. "Never mind, just promise you love me."

"I love you."

"Promise?"

The pity, the shame, the embarrassment in his girlfriend's face broke his heart. Lucy cuddled against him, practically in his lap, and if he hadn't blinked, he could have sworn that there had lay a small tear at the corner of her eye.

"Lucy?"

"Hm?"

Bending down, Emmet pressed a soft, warm, tender kiss to his girlfriend's lips, the Prince kissing Sleeping Beauty. "I promise, no matter what happens, what you decide, I will always love you with all my heart."

"I love you too." Lucy met the kiss, a little quicker than gently, and looked up at her boyfriend as one can only do when they have total trust, total calmness, total serenity with a person. If she was on a stage, she would look at his eyes the whole time. If she needed to take one person to a deadly match to cheer her on, it would be Emmet. She wanted him around her at all times.

Running a hand through her hair, Emmet whispered, soft enough to rock Lucy to sleep, "You ok now?"

The weight of her eyelids seemed to triple in the instant, and Lucy clutched into her boyfriend's hold, nodding, "I-I'm ok. I just want to sleep."

"Ok, come on."

At first, through drowsiness she had underestimated, Lucy had no idea what the command meant, and when Emmet carefully escaped from underneath her, she wanted to be awake enough to get very mad at him. However, as if he could read her thoughts, he bent down, pressed a kiss to her forehead, wrapped his arms around her waist, and picked her up like she was a delicate princess. Her legs wrapped lazily around his chest, and while her cheeks heated like pavement in Arizona, Emmet's warm hands against her back changed her mind. Just as she got more comfortable than she had ever been in his arms, he lay her down on the bed, pulled the blankets up to her shoulders, and climbed in after her.

She had one more request. "Emmet?"

"Hm?" The light shut off, and Emmet's arms wrapped warmly around her frame, snuggling tightly against her.

"Remind me in the morning to tell you how wonderful you are."

"Love you, sleepyhead."

"Love you more."

#

Flip over.

Look at clock.

Flip back over.

Wait.

Repeat.

These were the instructions Rex followed, ironically, throughout the night until the terrible hour of 3:00 A.M, when he could not be bothered to lie to himself any longer, when he couldn't deceive that he would ever get to sleep, when his body and mind finally agreed on something. Why could he sleep in a massive, dark, dank storage bin, but not in a plush hotel room?

That was also a lie. He was sleep deprived and he knew it. He also didn't care.

A walk.

The idea of doing something other than lying in the liquid, ebony darkness and trying to quiet thoughts that stabbed his stomach and pricked his mind gave him some excitement, and he pushed out of bed and out the door within the minute.

The hallway lights, vicious and unnecessary, blared at Rex's eyes, who had thought they were trying to go to sleep, and weren't happy with his decision. He shielded the light away has he walked, across the pink carpet, down the metal stairs, through the glittering lobby that smelled of pink paint and out the door, where a fire pit lay, burning away and nearly dead. It stood proud, like a battered soldier, willing to fight until the end if necessary, but secretly yearning for it to be over.

Rex meandered over, his steps treading along the pavement, as the sweet, tangy scent wafted into his breath. He threw some new wood into the fire, and it burst up in glorious, fantastical flames, dancing and shouting at its newfound life that Rex had given. The new warmth immediately drew into Rex's cold, lonely, broken skin, and he huddled in the chair next to the pit. The warmth reminded him of Lucy.

Was it wrong that he kept replaying every touch they had shared in the last twelve hours? Holding her hand, hugging her, he tried to replay every single detail to replicate it so he could have it forever and ever. The bitter scent of her hair, the exact warmth of her back, the feel of her hoodie, even the terrible way she cried, he had to remember it all.

"Don't leave," Rex muttered, raising his voice at the end so she would hear, though he made no movement as the flames danced over his face.

A pause, and she held fast to the door like a child gripping to her mother in a city of dangerous, strange people, giving looks the child had never seen. Her grip locked on the door, and he murmured, calling out to her shadow, "I just want to talk."

Again, her shadow on the pavement, blurred as it was, froze. It seemed they remained like this, frozen but racing, for the whole night until her shadow sighed, let the door drop, and she slowly walked over until he could see her face.

"Rex, I'm tired, I want to go to bed, what is it?" Unikitty asked, eyes drooping and head weary from her night. He could see the exact same bags, the same lines, the same exhaustion in her face that had lay in his own, and for a moment, he nearly offered her a hug.

She hated him, didn't she?

"Can we talk?" Rex motioned to the chair next to him, and specks of Emmet's pitiful, pathetic demeanor creeped into his expression, even as he glared down as hard as any man could.

For a moment, she didn't respond. It looked like a battle waged on her face, and the side against him slowly started to win out. The thin wisps of pure fire sang a haunted opera in her big, adorable, watering eyes. Her lip quivered. The breath she sucked in didn't have the stability to be called a breath.

"Alright."

Smashing the eye contact, Unikitty walked around Rex and sat next to him, curled up in a ball, her tail around her body. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

The notion intrigued Unikitty, to say the least. Was Rex offering for her to pick a topic? It was either the nicest or cruelest offer in the world. She could ask him anything, though she could never settle on one topic if they had all the time in the universe. Was he still in love with Lucy? Was he mad at her? Did he hate them all? Did he resent her? Did he want Lucy? Was he ok? Was he afraid? Was there any chance he would become a good guy, or had it already happened? Did he still consider Unikitty a friend?

In the end, though she opened her mouth to ask him every single one of her infinite questions, only one phrase breathed through her lips, "I'm sorry."

Rex's eyes shot at her. They burned. "Huh?"

"I…I'm sorry." Unikitty's gaze broken, and she whimpered, tightening her grip around herself, "I'm sorry this ever happened, I'm sorry we didn't find you, I don't know why or what happened, but I'm so sorry. We all love you, and you have to believe that."

"Loved," he corrected, grunting. "Past tense."

"Present tense."

Rex paused. "You mean you love Emmet."

The only topper to Rex's day, possibly the best one in five years, was Unikitty's smile. "Nope. I love you both, with all my heart."

She loved him. His best friend after Lucy, practically his sister, still loved him, after everything he had done and didn't do. Unikitty loved everyone, but she didn't care for everyone. She cared for him.

Rex glared. "Liar," he seethed, bursting up from his seat and marching towards the door.

"I still love you." Her words just carried far enough to hit his ears. He only stuttered.

Turning around, Rex pointed at Unikitty and glared as she smiled. "No, you're lying! No one loves me!"

"You sound like that's what you want."

"Stop smiling."

"Stop running."

It seemed that he finally listened, because as Unikitty got up from her sea, Rex's feet remained firmly planted on the pavement, his anger no longer lit by the warm, soft glares of the fire, but by the harsh, cruel flickers of the hotel lights. She stilted to a stop in front of him. "Don't you want to be loved?"

No response beyond a grunt.

"I know you won't believe me, but I really do still love you." Unikitty gently nudged her head against Rex's rough, uncaring arm, smiling like she did whenever she wanted to 'break someone's outer-layer' as Emmet had once said. "And, I bet if you asked them, a lot of your friends still love you."

Rex rubbed his eyes. "I doubt it. Not Lucy."

"She loves you. I don't know what her decision is going to be, but Lucy wouldn't stop loving you, no matter what, and you know that." Unikitty smiled softly.

Rex nodded like a student just taught a very hard but very necessary lesson. "Uh-huh."

"Come on," Unikitty whispered, motioning to the door. "You can sleep in my room, I'll go at the foot of the bed." She paused, gave him a smile, and mumbled, "Like old times."

Rex smiled at his best friend. "Yeah, like old times."


	4. Losing You

**A/N: AWWWW, thank you guys SO MUCH for the reviews, you're the best! And UUUGGGGH, I'm so sorry this chapter took so long, this one was so mean to me, I started it over so many times XD.**

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_23 hours and 30 minutes after finding Rex…_

"We lost Rex."

"You _what?"_

For one reason or another, the universe must have been punishing Lucy. She was sure of it at this point. Had she done something? Had she hit a flat note during her singing years that traumatized some poor soul and this was how she was going to pay for it?

"Quiet!" Unikitty hissed, jerking her head towards Emmet, still sound asleep in the bed. Lucy rubbed her elbows as she hiked out of the warm haven, where she had been sleeping almost peacefully before Unikitty barged in. Where was the peace of morning when she needed it? She was cold. She was out of Emmet's arms. She was miserable. It was _six in the morning. _If Rex's mission was to make her life heck by his mere presence, he had ruined it even more by leaving.

After sucking in a deep breath that provided half a moment's relief, Lucy whispered through clenched teeth, "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Unikitty exclaimed. Her breath hitched. Lucy could hardly understand her words as Unikitty tried to speak through light breath, "I woke up early this morning, I don't know why, but I did. I looked to see Rex because he was upset and I asked if he wanted to stay in my room to make him feel better, and when I looked he wasn't there! I checked outside where he was during the night, I checked all around the hotel, nothing!"

"Unikitty, calm down!" Lucy grabbed her best friend by the shoulders. The princess' eyes rattled in her head like marbles, and Lucy could only imagine that hers weren't much better. "We'll deal with several concerning parts of your explanation later, right now we have to find him."

She shot a look to Emmet.

"I'll be right there, uh, go wake up Batman, I'll meet you outside." Why was it so much colder in the morning? Did shivering have to walk hand-in-hand with freezing skin, trembling lips, and a foggy mind?

As if she could sense the frayed wires in Lucy's thoughts, and Lucy knew she probably could, Unikitty nodded and rubbed her best friend's shoulder. "Ok. Don't worry, alright? Emmet sleepwalks, Rex probably did the same thing."

"Yeah, probably," Lucy mumbled. Her eyes remained fixated on her sleeping boyfriend, and without a word, Unikitty slipped out of the room.

Emmet, Emmet, Emmet.

As Lucy bent down at the side of the bed, where her sleeping prince lay, she beat thoughts about how she regretted meeting him, of wishing he hadn't saved the universe, that it was someone else, out of her head. How she wished she had never fallen in love with him. Life would have been simpler.

No.

With searing tears itching her eyes, she knew it wasn't true. She hated Rex. She loved Emmet. Like a preschooler: Emmet good, Rex bad. Already she was mixing the two up in the worst possible way.

"I love you." Her words were hardly a murmur. "I'll never stop. I promise."

Lucy pressed a soft kiss to her boyfriend's forehead, pulled the blanket tight over his shoulders, and dashed out of the room.

"Found him?" Lucy burst through the hotel doors, checking behind her to see if she had broken the glass. Was she really that on edge?

Unikitty shook her head, though it looked more like trembling, or perhaps shivering. "No, we haven't' seen him. Come on, let's split up." After a quick nod to Batman, the three split directions, and Lucy had no choice but to ignore the sucker punch in her chest every half a second where her heart was supposed to lay. Unikitty went one way. Batman went another. She ran from the both of them.

Rex, Rex, Rex.

The name was stupid. Had he gotten the idea of an alias from her? Rex and Wyldstyle. Now _there _was a couple. Rex probably would have liked the tough front she had. Emmet saw past that. Emmet saw Lucy when Wyldstyle was there. Was she supposed to see Emmet when Rex was there?

_I sound like a nut._

Night was cold. She understood that, without the sun's harsh smile on the parched dirt, it would be colder than ice. That made sense. It didn't mean she had to like it.

A twig snapped.

Lucy whirled around and tripped on her foot.

Nothing. Not a chirp, not a rustle of wind, no sound echoed in her ears. Yet, with her heart rumbling and wracking sobs in her chest, with her breath rattling in shivering fright against her throat, and static pooling like ice and water in her ears, she had never desired the silence of home, of Emmet, of her safety so much as in that moment.

Like a child, a baby, Lucy wanted to go home.

No.

Pushing her hands against the burning of the frigid ground, Lucy propelled herself away from the muck and mud of her self-pity, the one emotion she despised more than all the others, and ran harder. Faster. Farther.

Maybe Batman and Unikitty had already found him.

Maybe he had gone back.

Maybe it was all a crazy dream.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Only when she tilted her head to the left, only when she brushed her hair out of her face, only when she took a breath did she see Rex, sitting against a tree, sound asleep and snoring just like Emmet did.

_Don't go over there._

Lucy walked the few feet between them, lightly treading the dirt as she did, until bending down next to Rex. For once, for one time, she could see Emmet. If she looked past the marker and the permanent grimace on his face, and if she squinted and tilted her head, she could see Emmet.

_No._

Her breath formed a perfect cloud of ice in the air, and she fell backwards off her knees. She rubbed her eyes. Why wouldn't it go away? She wanted to see Rex. She needed to see Rex. No Emmet.

The sound of her fidgeting and panicking was just enough to wake him up, and Lucy froze with the first groan he uttered.

"Aw, is this really where I chose to sleep?" Rex stretched and rubbed his eyes, twice rotating on the left, and up-and-down on the right three times. Lucy could have practically operated him. Why hadn't he changed _more? _Why couldn't he be so unrecognizable that she would never know who he was, and he would never know who she was?

Unfortunately for her fantasies, the moment Rex shifted his gaze at her, too many emotions pooled into his eyes, and he made sure Lucy saw each and every one of them.

"Oh, you," Rex grunted flatly. Lucy made no response.

Was he upset with her?

Did he hate her?

Did he even love her?

Why did she care?

"Why did you leave?" Biting down on her tongue, Lucy asked the only question that left her heart alone. Safe.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

Silence.

The silence was maddening. The silence burned in both their ears and toyed with their ribcages like string and tied them in fantastical shapes. No one wanted to break it, but they desired to have the strength to do so. Lucy could hear the oil of night dripping down the moon and darkening Rex's scowl. Rex could see the fluttering wind running and dancing through Lucy's hair. Lucy saw the drumming of Rex's burning blood. Rex heard the thoughts running wild through the woman's mind.

Lucy dropped her gaze lower.

Rex raised his.

He was tough now.

Like she had wanted.

Lucy was sweet now.

Like he had known.

"Am I–"

"Are you–"

Both went silent.

Lucy smiled, a forced peace offering. "Uh, you go."

Rex nearly didn't look at her diamond eyes. She was looking at him. Not through him, not over his shoulder, not at Emmet, but at him. Wasn't she supposed to look away? People didn't look at him like that. People didn't look at him like he was the hero, the one who had saved the city from disaster. A hero turned villain, but people only stared, disgusted, at the evil burning off his skin.

"Am I what you wanted?"

He knew Lucy was taken aback. He knew it, he was ok with it, and hated that he was.

Her lips parted to respond, her breath hitched as if ready to counter whatever his assumptions may have been, but it all lay in vain. The cruel twist of her beauty forced him to watch, to stare, as she struggled for an answer. She brushed a lock of hair from her face. The blue hair he didn't know she had, the hair she had lied about. He wanted to touch her hair, hold her hand, kiss her and never stop.

Like a bad mood, like a false alarm, it passed. Again. Like it always did. Even though it always came back.

"Uh…what do you mean?"

"You're stalling," Rex smirked. The harsh nature surprised him to this day. Was this him? No. It was Rex Dangervest. Good. "You always do that when you don't know what to say." He scoffed so hard his throat hurt. "Typical."

The burning light in her eyes reminded Rex of stars. Wondrous, mystical, but if any man were to break the space-time continuum and reach them, death would follow shortly after. Her eyes always lit on fire like that when she was mad at him. He smirked – though it felt like a smile.

"Oh yeah?" she sputtered, half of her head in three different places with five different people, and the rest too far asleep to help her clacking heart. "Well, you always play with your hands when you're nervous!"

A moment too late, Rex followed her gaze, and his hands lay, as red as a lake at sunset, twiddling and fidgeting in his lap.

The challenge to yell, to have one good fight, one maddening, terrible, drag-every-wrong-doing-out fight, presented itself in glittering, roaring glory, and Rex scrambled to tower over Lucy's shoulders and meet it. "You always play with your hair when you're flustered!" I didn't matter that he was shouting.

Lucy rocketed up to meet his scalding gaze and let go of the strands she had held. It mattered too much that she was shouting. "You always clench your fist when you're mad!"

"You grind your teeth when you're upset!"

"You never know what to do with your arms when you yell!"

"YOU ALWAYS SHUFFLE YOU'RE FEET WHEN YOU'RE ASHAMED!" Rex planted his feet hard in the ground.

Lucy groaned and screamed, "YOU ALWAYS KISS ME WHEN YOU'RE UPSET!"

With a blazing voice and searing eyes to match, Rex hollered, "FINE!"

Lucy had no time to react as Rex took her by the waist, drew her in, and crashed his lips against hers.

She neglected to push him away.


	5. Undesired

**A/N: LOL Did everyone like the cliffhanger ending on the last update? I know, I'm cruel XD. THANK SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS! Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

_What am I doing what am I doing what am I doing?_

As Lucy's arms tightened around Rex neck, unwilling to let go no matter what her mind said, as the kiss deepened from both parties, as she clung to him with everything she had, Lucy's thoughts collapsed to the ground until she could think of nothing and no one. She didn't think of Emmet, of his feelings, of how she would regret it, of what her friends would think of her. She thought of nothing, and she liked it that way.

He kissed her deeper.

Good.

Rex held her carefully. He ran his hands through her hair with a warm touch. He kissed her again. _Years. _It had been years since he had held the love of his life, the only woman who had ever given him a second glance, believed in him, trusted him and loved him. Already he began to dread the moment when she would break away, tremble over what she had done and how it would hurt Emmet, and run back to the man who had it all.

Lucy broke the kiss, though she remained linked around him.

"Rex…" her words hardly made it out of her controlled gasps, and she stared straight into his eyes. She saw Emmet's eyes, and the same shade of romantic, bitter dark chocolate. Though she knew, though for a long time she had understood, it had only dawned on her now that it was Emmet who was kissing her, Emmet who had yelled at her, Emmet whom she had hurt.

The smarter, more logical, always-right-in-the-end part of her mind, the one that had told her to stop trying to change Emmet, the one that had told her to tell him about her hair, about her past, now whispered that she should leave before she fell too much in love with the man she already loved.

As Lucy's lips met Rex's again, the logical sense in her gave up on the woman who clearly no longer listened.

Her back pressed against the tree.

She smiled into the kiss.

Nice.

Like a searing bullet, like a scraped knee, like a knock on the head, Emmet, Emmet and everything he had ever done for her, rushed into her thoughts like a tidal wave of blood.

No.

The kiss broke.

"No, Rex…I can't…Emmet…" Her words forgot how to form, her tongue refused to comply, and her mind knew less than she did.

_Emmet's going to hate you._

_He's going to break up with you._

_He's going to say it's over._

_And it's your fault._

"It's always him," Rex hissed. His arms remained around her waist, gently but quietly, and Lucy couldn't pull her arms away from his shoulders if she tried. It was Emmet! She was kissing Emmet…but it wasn't Emmet anymore.

This time, as his eyes bore into hers, as he rambled on and on, as he cursed under his breath and spit horrible things about how Emmet and taken everything from him, Lucy couldn't see Emmet in his eyes. She couldn't see him. It wasn't Emmet.

Emmet died.

"No, I have to get out of here, I don't know what I was thinking." Lucy tore from Rex's arms. He didn't fight her.

_You lost her._

_You stupid fool._

_Did you think you could ever really have her?_

_Pathetic._

As Lucy sprinted into the cloaking cape of darkness, as the only woman he had ever loved vanished from his sight, Rex knew, this time, he hated her.

Was the walk to find Rex longer? It had to be. She was back at the hotel in an instant, though too many and too few thoughts had rushed through her mind. She had easy thoughts, about how quickly Emmet would forgive her, and how much he loved her. She had awful thoughts, thoughts that made her want to bawl and throw up, about how Emmet could never forgive what she had done. She wanted to marry him, and yet she had gone and kissed another man. He would hate her.

The dim, flickering lights of the hotel snapped into view. Though Lucy's vision stood a full foot back in her mind, she spotted Unikitty, huddled and muttering to herself under a crackling lamp. Her head shot up the instant Lucy came into view, and hope filled her gaze, hope Lucy could no longer recognize and never wanted to know again. "Wait, Wyldstyle, did you find him?"

"Uh…" Lucy thought. Find him…Rex, did she find Rex…

"Yes, yeah, I found him, he's fine."

If Unikitty had any protest, she could give none, and Lucy shot through the hotel doors, up the stairs, into the hallways, before barreling into the door and falling into darkness.

"Emmet, I–"

Her boyfriend lay, sound asleep and curled up in bed, just as she had left him.

Though her stomach bit at every bone she had, though her head spun in three different directions, though her vision titled and twirled an inch behind her, Lucy couldn't tell him. Not yet. She climbed up into the bed, curled right next to Emmet, pulled the blanket over, and clung her arms around him.

Mumbles came from above her, and he turned over, wrapped his arms around her frame, and hugged her close to his chest like she was a stuffed animal. Her smile trembled.

It was wrong.

It didn't feel right.

Guilt gnawed at her mind. She clutched Emmet tighter, from her shoulder down to her wrists until her hands pressed around his chest, so if he woke up and found out, if he learned what she had done, he couldn't leave her. He wouldn't leave her, like he did in her nightmares, when she fell asleep choked by the thoughts that she didn't deserve him. Yes, she just had to hold him tight enough.

Would he even forgive her?

"Emmet?" Her hands reached up, pushing past the sticky solution of night to grab his arm, and she shook it gently, but slowly the loose, desperate panic reached down to her grip. "Emmet, wake up!"

"Mhmm…huh?" At first, the sweet voice of his girlfriend only reached Emmet's mind through his dreams, but the urgency and crackling static in her voice slapped him like a merciless commander, and sleep abandoned him for cold consciousness. He propped himself on his elbows and looked at Lucy through dim but wakening eyes and whispered, "Lucy? Are you ok?"

She had never grabbed his hand so tight.

"Hey, come on, it's ok, right?" A sense of pride seeped into his mind, and Emmet wrapped his arms tightly around his girlfriend, the one he was going to protect until the end of time. Her sobs muffled and broke in the crook of his neck, and he held her tighter in response.

"You want to talk about it?"

_No._

"You want to sleep more?"

_No._

As Lucy opened her mouth to answer him, Emmet reached down, pulled the blankets tight over their shoulders, and snuggled her close against his chest. "You don't have to tell me, but just know that I will always love you."

_Tell him._

_Say something._

_You're a liar if you don't tell him._

"And no matter what it is, we'll get through it, ok?"

The jackhammer in her heart stopped. Something bit on her stomach. She had no air in her lungs. She shut her eyes. "Emmet, I kissed Rex."

No matter how much he had prepared to hear the words, no matter how often he had thought this would happen eventually, no matter if he knew ahead of time, it still sucked every breath from his lungs. Lucy tugged on his arm, and he remained silent, as she foolishly believed he still followed her orders.

It had to happen eventually.

He blinked away the tears. He blinked away the tears because he knew, no matter how much it hurt or choked his throat, if he let them go he was bound to start bawling, and he wouldn't do that. It was all necessary. This had to happen. It was ok. No one stayed with him for long, he knew that now. Not even Lucy would stay with him forever.

"L-Lucy…" he nearly laughed at his miserable attempt to talk, and he choked on a sob. His girlfriend bawled into his shoulder, and all Emmet wanted in the moment was to cry with her.

"I-I'm sorry…" she choked.

She clutched him tighter, her face in his chest, and for the first time in five years, Emmet wanted to get away from the love of his life.

"Emmet?" Lucy's voice shattered against her throat as Emmet gently pried her off, slid off the edge of the bed, and stood up. She choked and climbed over sobs to plead, "Em-Emmet, don't do this, c-come on, pl-please?"

He turned back to her, yet with whatever light the world granted in the pure darkness of the teenage morning, all she could see was his tears. He opened his mouth, she scrambled to sit up. He closed it. She reached for his hands, he placed them on her shoulders, firm and warm. "I love you, Lucy." Quickly, he leaned over, pressed his lips to hers, and walked out the door.

Lucy had bawled far too much today.

#

_28 hours after finding Rex…_

"Wyldstyle? Please, we've got work to do, and everyone misses you!"

"Come on, we're gonna go exploring!"

"I don't really care, but Unikitty said I have to get – OW! Hey, I'm trying!"

"Ye have to come out of that room eventually!"

All Lucy's friends, minus two men who were making her life heck, had tried and failed to get her to come out of her room, but Lucy had made that decision a long time ago. She wasn't going to come out until Emmet came to her door, apologized, told her he loved her, and they made up. Until he cared enough to knock at her door and try to get her out, she saw no reason to leave.

So, for the time being, chucking crumpled notepad sheets into the wastebasket seemed like the perfect pastime.

As another victim sailed through the air in a perfect curve, bounced off the pastel-blue paint and swiftly fell into the goal, Lucy could hear MetalBeard's gigantic, booming feat clank and stomp their way back down the hallway. She smirked. This would be easy.

"Lucy?"

_Emmet._

Immediately, before Lucy could drag her heartrate down from the ceiling, she straightened, gripped the sides of the bed she still hadn't gotten out of, and bit down on her lip. He was here. He felt bad. It was going to be ok.

However, as a well-known and usually well-played smirk graced her lips, Lucy remained silent. Knowing how Emmet worked was a big part of being his girlfriend, and if she didn't miss her mark, and she _never _did, he would plead and beg at her door for at least ten minutes before she had to say anything.

"Lucy, we need to talk, besides, everyone's already downstairs and ready to go see the city. Please? I… I miss you."

Dang that sweet voice.

Lucy leaned towards the door. "Are you sorry?"

There was a pause, and Lucy quietly put down her notepad.

"Yeah."

Lucy smiled, hopped off the bed, and ran to open the door. "I'm sorry too, I know we both need to talk for a long time, but I–"

The moment the door unhinged and swung open, Rex Dangervest stared right back at her, the slickest smirk she had ever seen on his face.

"So," he began, running a hand through his hair that probably took him three hours every morning. "Turns out I can still do Emmet's voice pretty well, huh?"

"Rex…"

"Hey, you didn't slam the door in my face, that's progress, huh?"

It took too much effort, Lucy decided, to hang onto any anger at Rex. If her boyfriend hated her, if he couldn't forgive her yet, if she had already hurt him, then it made sense to hold onto the one who didn't hate her…as much. "Where are the others?" Her words were hardly a mumble, and she yawned, ignoring Rex's calm eyes searching for something in her face.

"Downstairs, Unikitty wants us all to go and check out the city before we start cleaning it up." Rex paused, and his entire face shifted from unimpressed, uncaring, and disinterested into a mysteriously sweet, concerned disposition. "You ok?"

A moment passed. Lucy looked Rex over, and at this, he visibly straightened. Did she have to hold such an effect over him, even after years of solitude? He should have been over her by now! Ready to move on, get a new life, be a different person. Yet, as she shook her head and her hair flipped from side to side, Rex wanted nothing more than to never be over her. The thought of no longer caring about her made his body sick and his head spin.

"I'll be fine once my dope of a boyfriend forgives me."

"For?"

Lucy raised an eyebrow at Rex. "What do you think?"

"You _told _him?"

"I had to. I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

"Look, I know this is gonna seem kind of odd, but I don't want you to worry." Rex didn't have to think twice before placing both hands on her shoulders. She tensed, but the longer he spoke, the longer he looked into her eyes, she began to relax, to listen. "Emmet would never stay mad at you for long, heck, I don't even think he's mad at you right now. He's downstairs moping and won't tell anyone why, and Unikitty's driving herself nuts."

Lucy chuckled, her head drooped and tilting. "I can see that."

"So it's all ok?" Rex raised a hand and wiped away the tears that threated to slid down Lucy's freckles. "Everything is awesome, all that junk?" Lucy started to laugh, and even as Rex realized how close the two of them had gotten, she continued laughing, so he continued talking, "You're not going to kill me to feel better or anything?"

Laughing, laughing like she thought she couldn't anymore, Lucy replied, "N-no…"

Rex smirked. "Good, cause you're _way _too pretty to start crying on me."

The breath drained from Lucy's lungs. Rex's hands remained firmly on her shoulders. The pair froze. Rex started to pull back, and Lucy reached up and grabbed his wrists with an iron grip. "Don't," she murmured, holding onto him until her hands ached.

Did he hate them both?

Emmet stood, mere feet away, where anyone should have seen him but no one did, watching as he stole his own girlfriend away from himself. He hated what Rex was doing. He hated what Lucy was doing. He didn't hate either of them. He wished he did.

What was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to stand there, helpless like a child, and watch until Rex kissed Lucy _again? _The thought made his skin burn.

_Walk over there._

_Leave._

_Shout._

_Beg that Lucy throw Rex to the dust._

Though everything in his mind told him not to, though his conscious, his gut, his mind, his heart, though everything that hated and loved him warned against it, though he almost heard Vitruvius's ghost whispering a caution to him, Emmet shook his head, told himself it was for Lucy, and walked back down to the lobby.


	6. One Third

**A/N: LOLOLOL I'M SO CRUEL XD. And thank you SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS! I love all of them, they seriously mean so much to me. And WOW I'm so sorry for such a slow update, Toy Story is pulling me away from the LM world and summer is busy and I've been drawing…but I FINALLY GOT IT DONE! THANKS!**

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_29 hours after finding Rex…_

_"Ok, we're all going to go exploring in groups. Uh…Emmet, you go with, Rex and Lucy what a wonderful idea bye have fun!" _

'Awkward' was never something Lucy had concerned herself to heavily with in the past. She was the person in the group who usually made things awkward, didn't realize it at the time, had someone tell her about it later on, and still didn't care. Why should she? What did she care if things weren't totally comfortable for everyone around her?

However, this, this in particular, she didn't need to be told was awkward. All three knew.

She would make Unikitty pay a thousand times over for this.

Emmet didn't know where to look. Like when everyone sings happy birthday in front of the cake, or when a parent tells a child how rough it was in their life, or someone indulges a painful, intimate secret, he hadn't the slightest clue where he was supposed to look. At Lucy? No, they were fighting, and how he hated that word. At the ground? Too sheepish, too shy. At Rex? The guy who was trying to steal the love of his life from under him and _actually succeeding? _

No way.

So, for the time being, Emmet looked straight ahead as they walked, but a little to the left, so it wouldn't look odd.

Rex hated to hate and loved to love. And he hated it that way. Why couldn't he have fully morphed, fully transformed into someone who hated everyone and everything, as opposed to this broken-but-taped-together-and-still-sort-of-functioning toy Lucy seemed to enjoy playing with? He wanted to hate. He wanted to hate them all with a burning passion. But he still couldn't kill the Emmet that was left inside him. He still made excuses for Lucy. He still thought Emmet was a good friend. He believed Unikitty meant it when she had told him she loved him.

He wished he didn't care. About any of them.

Then _he _could be happy.

"What does she want us to do again?" Rex was the first to speak. Dang the remnants, the broken shards and droplets of poisonous Emmet still burning in his body. Referring to Unikitty, Rex ran a hand through his hair and looked solely at Lucy. "She talks so fast, I hardly heard her."

Emmet chuckled, and his darker, more sober counterparts shot uneasy glances at him. He silenced his mirth and replied, "Yeah, that's Unikitty for you."

A moment passed. Lucy continued walking, between the two men who both had custody of her heart, in the same way, at the same time. She was supposed to dictate it to one of them. Lucy supposed, on some level, she was supposed to choose Emmet. He was her one true love, right? Sure, Rex had been through heck and back, but she couldn't abandon Emmet, turn him into Rex, just so she could satisfy the broken man on her left. But as soon as she thought of that, she imagined Emmet, who avoided her gaze when she looked but stared when she didn't, stuck in a cosmic wasteland for who-knew-how-long, only to find her again and see she was still spoken for. Taking Rex back would be the ultimate way to thank Emmet for sticking by her when everything had gone to heck, including herself.

Then, she started all over again.

Emmet winced, tears trickling down his face. _Please, someone stop this._

Rex rubbed at his eyes. _It's too much. _

Lucy swallowed a sob. _I can't hurt them._

Something, be it an angel of mercy or Jocularity in its purest form, rang the school bell of youth and innocence, and Lucy uttered a sad laugh, shared glances with both men, and muttered, "This could _not _be more awkward, could it?"

The ball had passed to their court, and Rex took it. He shrugged, and Lucy saw a familiar flicker of sweet, sugary friendliness, like a puppy, light up in his smile. "I mean, it's Unikitty, she's got a knack for putting people into the worst places at the worst times."

No words were said as Lucy peered at Emmet. Her eyes pleaded, begged and implored that he say something.

_Emmet, I love you._

_I'm sorry._

_But I can't go on like this._

_I need you._

A smile intruded the conversation, and Emmet replied, "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if she locks us out of the hotel until we get along."

The group chuckled. Lightly, carefully, hesitantly, but they laughed.

Lucy, after a moment's hesitation, shared a look with each man beside her, and for a brief moment, a terrible, awful thought flew into her mind. It was evil, even, to think of such a thing. How could she? All the breath seeped from her lungs as she desperately swatted the thought out. How could she assume, even for a second, that she was _lucky? _How could she think that she was lucky to have two men, both very much in love with her, at the same time? Awful. It was awful.

They both loved her.

They both wanted her.

And she could only choose one.

"I'm sorry," Lucy murmured. Both men stopped a playful banter that had begun between them the moment she spoke, yet she couldn't bring her gaze up to them. Her feet skidded to a stop in the cracked, dry pavement. Sun forced her eyes shut. "I… I hate that I have to do this. I don't… I can't… I don't want to hurt either of you."

"Hey, it'll be alright, ok?" Lucy and Lucy's needs held priority over nearly everything else in Emmet's mind, and even as he tried to summon and call back what anger had coursed through his blood just an hour ago, it only lay as a scab, a scar he would wear for the rest of his days. A wounded soldier with no medals.

Carefully, Emmet draped his arm over Lucy's shoulders, nearly flinching at the warmth and nearness, though they had only been separated for a few hours. Lucy tilted to face him, and not a second had passed before she murmured a low, choked, "I'm so, so sorry."

Sometimes, he hated being the nice one.

A light smile on his face, Emmet pressed a warm, lingering kiss to Lucy's forehead. "It's ok, Lucy."

Rex rolled his eyes harshly as he stood above them. One minute, they were the trio of friends (maybe?) who could stand anything together, with the only snag being that two out of three were extremely in love with a third of the group. Now, it was, as it had been and as it would always be, Emmet, Lucy…and Rex. Never Rex, Lucy, and Emmet. _He _was he odd one out. If they stumbled upon a two-person game, he would have to wait his turn. If they bought matching t-shirts, he would have to say 'No, it's fine, you guys wear it'

Take romance out of it.

They would never be his friends.

And the fact that he _wanted _friends, that he still longed for people to care for and be cared for, was a thousand times worse than not having them in the first place.

_I hate you both._

"Huh?" Emmet perked up at the sound of Rex's voice, no matter if it was fuzzed and blurred by static. "Did you say something, Rex?"

"Uh…not exactly." Even Lucy stared at him like he wore a clown nose. It wasn't his fault they had hearing issues.

But…how could Emmet hear something that wasn't there?

_Idiot._

Again, Emmet flinched. "Hey, I know you said something!" After prying himself form Lucy's hold, he stepped over to Rex, the man who had nearly stolen his girlfriend away, and still could. While his steps were meant to be menacing, or at least intimidating, curiosity held him by the ankles, and he quivered as he stopped in front of his time-traveling counterpart. "C'mon, Rex, what is it?"

Emmet crossed his arms over his chest. **_ He's bluffing to make me look stupid._**

Defensive, boiling blood rose in Rex's chest. "Hey, I am not!"

Lucy stared, having calmed down her haywire, possibly permanently damaged emotions, at the men before her. "Uh, does anyone want to tell me what's going on? I feel like I'm listening to one side of a conversation."

"Uh…Emmet, hold on." Making sure he had cleared his mind of any thoughts he didn't want Emmet to see, ranging from Lucy to the bitterness he held about the Dryar, Rex forced one sentence to the front go his mind. _Can you hear me?_

The only person who would get excited about this sort of this grinned wildly. "Yeah, I can! Wait, let me try!" Emmet planted his feet firmly in the ground, as if standing at the ready for a battle, and thought, **_Are we reading each other's minds?_**

_Yeah, we are. But…how?_

**_I don't know! Maybe because we're kind of the same person?_**

_Take out the 'kind of' and you're probably right._

**_This is awesome! _**

They said nothing. Their eyes displayed confusion and wonder, Lucy could see it in both their faces and smiles, but neither said a _word. _Was it a joke? Were they trying to get back at her in the most juvenile, stupid way possible? The very idea of Emmet, never mind Rex, pulling something like this on her sent a wave of sickening heat through her face.

"ALRIGHT, someone better tell me what's going on before I bash your heads together!" Lucy's face fumed pure burgundy as she hollered at the two.

Emmet smirked at Rex. **_My girlfriend's amazing, isn't she?_**

_Actually, she's hot, but sure._

**_Hey!_**

Out of nowhere, Rex started laughing.

Which turned into cracking-up laughing.

"I-I'm…" Trying to voice his reason for laughing like a grade-schooler only sent him into another fit of giggles, which quickly grabbed Emmet into it. Before long, both men had collapsed on the floor, laughing like the Three Stooges had made their world debut.

However, a third of the group was not so happy.

Lucy roughly grabbed them each by the collar. "Ok, if one of you even smiles, I'll knock you into next week!" At the thought of what would have surely happened by next week, Lucy amended her words. "Ok, into tomorrow. But still, someone tell me what's going on!"

After she dropped him out of her iron grip, Emmet rushed to stand and announced, "Lucy, Rex and I can read each other's minds!"

Rex poked Emmet on the shoulder. "Ok, wait, here, just wait, alright?" His words mumbled together in a quick wind of breath, but Emmet caught on. _Ok, when I say go, I want you to holler, "Hey, don't say that about her!"_

Once more, Emmet cracked up laughing. **_Ok, ok, I got it. _**

_Three, two, one, go!_

**_Hey, don't say that about her!_**

The only amusing part of this for Lucy was when Rex smacked his forehead. _Not in your mind, idiot!_

**_Oh, right. Ok, I'm ready!_**

_Go!_

Forcing as much of an angered tone as he could in such a bubbly, innocent state, Emmet yelled, "Hey, don't say that about her!"

"_Excuse you?"_

As if lightning had reached through her wrist, Lucy grabbed Rex's collar as he tried (and failed) to stop laughing. "You wanna repeat that out loud?"

"Lucy, it was a joke! Rex told me to say that!" Emmet quickly intervened before his girlfriend could cause any real damage, and after a moment's hesitation, she dropped him to the ground.

The two continued exchanging _hilarious _thoughts with one another, and Lucy simply stepped back, waiting for one of them to say, "Hey, maybe we should stop, Lucy looks left out of the ridiculous friendship we've formed. And hey, while we're at it, why don't we stop being total jerks, huh?" Because, as fuming rage watered down to the loneliest, most empty feeling that had ever rolled down her spine, she really wanted _one _of them back.

She had one.

Then she had two.

Until she had none.

Now she is simply a third of one.

Neither of the Vest-Friends noticed as she quickly turned around and walked, slowly enough to give them time to catch her but quick enough that she would still get away, down the street.


	7. One and the Same

**A/N: THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS! I can't believe people still like LM and this story XD. Ok, so I've had this idea in mind for a while, but I'm not gonna say anything, just…tell me what you think at the end. Thanks!**

* * *

_38 hours after finding Rex…_

They were both stupid.

Lucy had rehashed the story in her mind over and over again, on a different person's side every time. First, she blamed them entirely: They were being total jerks, ignoring her like that. Then, she blamed Rex: He was influencing Emmet…again. Then she blamed Emmet: He was supposed to stick by her no matter what. And finally, she blamed the whole situation, which made her feel only slightly better.

Kicking herself off the hotel bed, Lucy found her phone and sent a text to Unikitty.

_Are the idiots coming up anytime soon?_

It didn't feel right to call Emmet an idiot, but she was mad. She had every right. So why did the guilt wash up in her stomach once more?

_If you mean the two guys who love you more than the universe, yes, they were just playing with an arcade game they built. _

Rolling her eyes, Lucy shot back another text in self-defense.

_Gee, glad to know they're so worried about me._

Unikitty wasted no time. No one could or had ever won an argument with Unikitty via text. She was the undisputed master of all non-verbal communication, and Lucy knew five seconds after the next text she was done for.

_Well, considering you've been driving both of them nuts for the past day-and-a-half, I think they deserve some time to just have fun without you. They get along really well, and I'm hearing Emmet laugh for the first time since this happened. Are you really going to take that away because you hate that these guys are no longer dying at your feet for you?_

Lucy stared at the phone.

_I gtg._

_That's what I thought._

Lucy chucked her phone back into her bag and collapsed onto the bed, making a mental note to never, ever let Unikitty become president of anything. She'd have the world baking cookies as currency and voting based on who could pin the tail on the donkey.

"Hey, Lucy." Emmet's voice, while no longer sullen and melancholy, still didn't harbor his usual peppy attitude, reminding her they were damaged. Her kissing Rex had obviously wounded him on a level she couldn't fix with a quick apology. He walked in, smiled warmly, and gave her a kiss. "What have you been doing all day?"

"Oh, just hanging out here. Considering I can't read your mind, it looks like I need a new best friend." Her words came out sounding meaner than she had meant, but no regret traced the tail of her sentence. Emmet, before he was her boyfriend, was her best friend in the whole world, and today was like she was seven again and her best friend ditched her for a cooler kid. But this hurt…a lot more.

Warm, strong arms wrapped around her waist from behind, followed by a quick, lazy kiss to her shoulder. "You know I love you, right?" She leaned back into his arms, and his lungs settled against her heart that had finally stopped hollering through her throat. "You're my best friend, Lucy. Nothing's going to change that, ever."

How was he so good?

"You're too good to me," Lucy gently informed him, sliding her hands into his. She tilted her head and quickly pressed her lips to his, deepening it after only a moment.

Emmet tried to not think about it.

He tried not think about how she had kissed Rex this same way mere hours ago.

He tried to kiss her more to shove the thought out.

He tried to just imagine Rex was her ex-boyfriend, like Batman.

It didn't help.

Gently, and trying to not make it seem like anything was out of the ordinary, Emmet broke the kiss and placed one on her forehead. "Tired?" He held her close against him once more, her breathing slow and relaxed against his chest. Much better. He inhaled, taking in the sweet scent of her raspberry-shampoo.

Lucy nodded, though some hesitation lay in the action, like she might have known something was wrong, but was too exhausted with everything that had happened to care. "Yeah, a little."

Lucy refused to break contact with her boyfriend as he shut off the lights, pulled them both down to lay in the bed, and snuggled her as close as possible. She clung to him, and he pressed a warm kiss to the top of her head. "I love you, Lucy. Forever."

"I love you for more than forever."

They had both fallen asleep before they could argue any further.

#

_"EMMET!"_

_My throat burned._

_He stepped back, wrapped in chains that hung limply from his body, like even they didn't want to do this to him. He swallowed thickly. "I love you, Lucy." Nothing more, nothing less. The guard yanked against the rusted, alloy-scented metal, and he groaned against the tug. They were hurting my Emmet._

_I tore from the guard that clutched my forearms with strength I had never known before and nearly sent me off balance. I shoved past guards that either couldn't be bothered to take me away or just wanted to watch the show. One put out a rough arm before I could reach Emmet, but I shoved it out of the way._

_I collapsed against his chest._

_"Emmet, they can't take you, I love you!" I sobbed, I bawled, I let everything out into his chest. A kiss, slow and long, pressed to the top of my hair. He smelled of metal and fear. Sweat mixed with my tears. _

_"Lucy," he spoke like a father. His voice was calm, cool, and tearful, and he pulled me up so he could kiss me. "Don't be afraid, alright? Just be good."_

_With that, the guards yanked on his chains, and pulled him to where I could never see._

"EMMET!"

Lucy's throat burned.

Everything was hot. Her skin, clothes, hair, the bed, it was all scalding to the touch and weighing a searing rock down in her stomach. She couldn't breathe. Everything pulled against her, sucking her deeper and deeper against the wall, plugging her ears and blinding her vision.

Emmet turned over in his sleep, and his sweet, cuddling embrace snuggled around her arm.

Cool.

Gentle ice, careful frost, tender water melted over her skin from his touch, and even in his sleep, Emmet managed to calm every stray nerve that poked through her skin. Her vision cleared. The night was no longer as dark as tar. Her hearing resurfaced to listen to the vents, his breathing, and her heartbeat, slowly evening out.

Her sense of touch broke through in vivid clarity, just in time to feel tears spilling off her face.

How could she do this to him?

He had never done anything wrong. In his _life. _Sure, there had been one incident in the Systar System, but Rex manipulated him, she had been a total jerk, and they were in a strange new place. Anyone would crack under that. Besides that day, Emmet was practically an angel.

Somehow, she knew she was going to choose Emmet. Hard as she tried, she couldn't imagine picking Rex, living a life with him, and abandoning the sweetest man that had ever lived and loved. No. She would choose Emmet. Rex...Rex was an accident, a wrong turn in their life, a misstep. She wasn't responsible for time's mess-up.

When the week was up, she was going to choose Emmet.

Immediately, a thousand pounds seeped from her chest, and, for the first time in days, air took its place.

Lucy cuddled beneath her blankets, pulling them tight up over her shoulders, and snuggled under Emmet's arm, who instinctively curled around her. She pressed a slow kiss to his lips, clung to his chest, and fell into the most peaceful sleep she and ever felt.

#

Three Hours later…

"Lucy, Lucy!"

Well, that had been a fun three hours.

Her thoughts streamed in a steady run, and while they slowly connected between mid-thoughts, half-thoughts, and pure gibberish, she would always remember the track her train of thoughts steamed across those first few moments of consciousness.

_Why am I awake?_

_Is that Emmet?_

_Man, Rex is cute under this lighting._

_What?_

Her third thought had been correct, at least on one count. Rex gently and repeatedly shook her shoulder, hissing her name as Emmet tightened her grip around her. For only a moment, the thought that two Emmets were both in such close proximity to her spooked the living heck out of her, but when Rex spoke, the thought vanished.

"I have to show you something, come on!"

Twisting to face Emmet with a loyalty that swelled pride in her chest, Lucy pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, maneuvered out of his arms, crawled out of the bed, and followed a silent and unusually sober Rex out the door. It only dawned on her when they hit the harsh hallway lighting and freezing cold that whatever he was going to show her was probably crazy. It could be anything from a new gun to a confession of undying love. At this point, she hoped it was neither and he just needed help reaching something.

As she bit her tongue to keep from bombarding him with questions, Rex opened the door, led her in, and _still _didn't say a word until she sat on the bed, facing him. He paced, muttering and huffing to himself over and over again. Lucy found herself pitying Rex. He was just…not supposed to have done the time-travel, so none of thi–

Time-travel.

If Rex hadn't traveled through time, if he hadn't gone to save Emmet, then her Emmet wouldn't even be with her. Rex was the only reason she had Emmet with her, the only reason she even had to make this choice, and the only reason she could call him the accident of breaking the space-time continuum.

If anything, having Emmet with her was the accident.

No, no, no.

Thankfully for her sanity, Rex spoke up and cut through her haywire thoughts that had seemed so clear in the darkness of her own hotel room. The blaring lights in Rex's brought up new topics she didn't like, ones she hadn't considered, and ones she didn't want to ever see.

"Look, I know you're not going to want to see this, but I feel like you have to." His voice quivered and cracked as he spoke. Not good. He kept rubbing the back of his neck, like Emmet did. Very not good. He stepped over to her, and his hands fell to her shoulders, cupping them gently and warmly. She tensed. Not at his touch, but because it felt too much like Emmet's. He sighed, and after holding her gaze for a moment too long, he murmured more to the ground than her face, "Just stay here, alright?"

It seemed of great importance, so she replied in a quiet, understanding tone, "Sure."

With that, Rex disappeared into the bathroom.

Lucy raised an eyebrow.

As her mind whirled and danced around different ideas of what he had to show her, and how it involved going into the bathroom, she hardly realized how quick he was in there, because she had just begun to worry when he came back out.

Holding a wet rag.

With his hair combed down, exactly like Emmet's.

Rex looked at Lucy, and gave her a moment to process her thoughts. For once in his Rex-life, he was going to be patient and caring. Not for himself, but for Lucy. Then again, maybe this was the most selfish thing he could do. It would tip the scales way in his favor, or at least even them out. He was fighting for his life and his heart. It was all fair game, and Emmet had the home-court advantage.

The face she made was all confusion. He decided to explain, "I…I want…I just…" Only after stuttering and huffing several times did he realize how little he knew how to tell her what his idea was. It sounded perfectly clear in his head. He could pick it apart word-by-word, but saying it out loud to Lucy…seemed wrong. Finally, he settled, and held out his hand to her. "Here, just…come here."

Despite obviously not needing to, Lucy grabbed his hand. It was warm, caring and firm. She stood before him, and he had to appreciate the way she jumped in with both feet when she (assumingly) had no idea what was going on. He wouldn't say he found that attractive. "Ok, what is it?"

Rex released her hand and took the rag a few inches from his face, then froze. This was it. Almost everything that made him Rex, on the outside, would be taken away. Temporarily, but if she saw, then what did it really matter? It would be over. He could never really hide again. But did he want to hide from her? From the woman he loved more than anything in the world?

The rag was colder against his face then he had realized.

Pretending to ignore Lucy's small gasp of realization, Rex pulled the rag away, happy and horrified to see a thick, pasty, black smudge across the material. He looked at Lucy, let go of his throat, and spoke in a voice he swore to never use again.

"Long time no see, huh, Lucy?"


	8. A Dangerous Life

**A/N: Dangerstyle fans…BUCKLE YOUR SEATBELTS. And thank you guys so much for the reviews! XD, I've been waiting to do that last scene for so long lol, I'm glad y'all like it! :) This chapter is a shout out to all the Dangerstyle fans out there, and this A/N is an apology to those who…aren't. ENJOY! *cackles evilly like Plankton from SpongeBob* Whoops, did that come out of me?**

* * *

It wasn't him. It couldn't be him, because he was Rex. It was like seeing something float when it was supposed to fall. Like watching everything school had taught her fall apart at the seams. She had held onto the fact that Rex and Emmet were separate, different individuals. Now she had two Emmet's, one who had been through heck and back, and the other.

Nothing was off. He looked, apart from the clothes and the misery and dread that stuck to his face, exactly like her Emmet.

For once, she was sick of looking at Emmet.

"Get away from me." She couldn't talk because her lips trembled under an earthquake. Her heart beat too fast to be effective. Her steps landed on empty air as she backed away and he inched closer. "Just…don't, I can't…"

"You have to." He kept his stupid voice in that same stupid pitch as stupid Emmet's. Why did he get to talk so clearly? Why wasn't he quivering like his world was about to end? Why was _she _the one who was having the most trouble with this? His hand inched for hers. "Lucy, you have to know."

"There, there!" Shaky laughter vibrated like a pinball machine inside her throat. "You're not Emmet. Emmet would leave me alone when I wanted it!"

"No, I always did what was best for you, even if you didn't want–"

"SHUT UP!" Tears made her eyes ached. If she wasn't so dang proud and lets the tears go instead of forcing them to fight their way out, maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad. "Stop talking like you're him! I love him!"

The smirk was back, but it vanished quickly. "You love me. Both of us, because we're the same."

_That _was Rex. Her heart calmed. He wasn't totally Emmet. Not yet.

"I hate you." In the moment, she meant it. Blood coursed like molten lava through her brain and destroyed the meager amounts of hope, joy, and trust in her world she had left. Everything she had depended on fell and shattered to the ground. Thin, brittle bones split in two. Piano keys clanked all at once. A balloon squeaked. Everything was _wrong._

"You don't hate me." He was gaining traction. He was climbing up a ninety-degree mountain that slowly turned him on his head. He couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't even sense what was coming, yet he had to keep going on the half a chance that she would grab his hand and haul him up to that glorious rainforest in the sky. "You love me. You hate that you love me."

"I hate you." She hated him. She hated him, Emmet, Rex, everyone involved and everyone between. Hating felt much better. She had to hate him, otherwise she would love him, and if she loved the man in front of her, the man whose shy tendencies and insecure habits rushed forward in a flood of truth she tried to fight off with a baseball bat, then everything was lost and her solution was little more than a hallucination. "And I hope you hate me." That was a lie. It tasted sweet. The falsehood tasted like fine, melted dark chocolate with just enough sweetness to combat the bitter aftertaste.

His hands grabbed hers. She tensed and wouldn't think about how they fit just like Emmet's.

"Don't say that." Did he have to sound hurt as he spoke? "Don't lie to me like that!" There was Rex again.

His eyes took on a tearful, glossy glow, and that stupid, aching, scalding feeling of vile trash that burned in her heart whenever she saw Emmet cry scratched at her throat again. "Please, Lucy. I can't force you, but don't hate me." He looked like a puppy, or a ruined, wrongly accused child. Total innocence and regret poured over his face, and her mind refused to entertain the idea that it was fake. Emmet couldn't be fake. "I can't take that."

Pushing forward, she caught his lips on hers, and never in her right mind could she doubt again that Rex and Emmet were the same. He backed away for an instant, pausing and gasping like he couldn't believe this was happening, before grabbing her around the waist and kissing her back. Passionately.

She owed him. She owed him a lifetime. She owed him the life he could have had. She owed this Emmet, the real Emmet, the Emmet that wasn't the accident the world and life he was the rightful owner of. The wedding, the house, the kids. She owed him waking up in the mornings and falling asleep to a movie, she owed him a family and a home, she owed him her love and his friends.

Could she take that away from him, knowing everything they had gone through?

Her hands went around his neck.

Hadn't she promised to stick by him no matter what? Even if he became a monster?

He breathed between kisses.

Breaking away for a moment, just a moment, she smiled a real smile that couldn't be touched by the man that was one and the same with this one in the other room. "Rex…Emmet?"

A million emotions splashed across his face, and she ignored half of them. "Yeah?"

"I love you."

Laughter.

Hugging her to his chest, Rex breathed in the sweet scent that he had refused to forget in his exile. "I love you too, Lucy."

Little did they know, outside the door, someone heard everything. And they smiled.

#

Morning.

Mornings were, and always had been, Emmet's favorite time. Everything was fresh and new, the problems of yesterday had failed to reach his mind yet, and breakfast was right around the corner. When you think of Spring, you think of spring _mornings, _or he did at least. He thought of winter mornings, like Christmas Eve at five in the A.M., when Lucy was still half asleep as they discovered what Santa had left them. He thought of fall mornings, when he shivered and laughed at the same time. Summer mornings, when the world was too hot to live but too quick not to enjoy.

That's why, when he woke up dreading the universe, he tried to move as fast as possible to distract himself.

"Hey, Lucy, should we go exploring? Maybe find my old apartment? Whatever you want!" His tongue moved faster than his mind which was slower than his body, and it took all three a good minute of rambling to discover that Lucy wasn't asleep in bed. "Uh…" he spun slowly around the room, hands raising as though a gun pointed to his head. "…Lucy?"

_She's with Rex, you know._

He hated that voice. It sounded like a human snake, slick in tongue and slimy in voice, always filling his head with doubts about Lucy. And lately, it was louder. Bolder. Scarier. But worst of all, he had started to believe it.

"She's probably downstairs."

His feet were faster than he would have cared to admit, and he bolted out the door and to the lobby.

Sitting outside by the fire pit, eyes glazed over and too deep in thought for him to ponder at the moment, Unikitty hardly noticed his presence. "Unikitty?" No movement. "UNIKITTY!"

"Huh?" Even when he made it through the blockage of thoughts crowding her headache, Unikitty's eyes remained mostly glossed. "You say something, Emmet?" Something sweet inched through her tone …sympathy? Regret? He wasn't sure, but he didn't like the reasons behind it even more.

"Uh, I was just wondering where Lucy is."

Unikitty shrugged. "Not sure."

Not the time. He understood that. No one had been 'alright' since they literally pulled Rex out of thin air, and Emmet was the last person to push someone's comfort zone walls. Still, as he turned around, he couldn't help the meek question that rolled off his tongue. "Are you ok, Unikitty?"

The whimpering in her throat told him no.

Inching towards her, pushing through the early morning glow that cast an orange, gentle shadow over Unikitty's pink complexion, Emmet put a warm hand on her shoulder as his heart rate finally settled back to his shoes. "You wanna talk about it?" She shook her head. "Are you ok?" She paused…then nodded, reserved. "You want a hug?" A quick nod.

Emmet smiled. That, he could do.

Unikitty wept softly as he wrapped his arms tightly around her trembling frame, hugged her to his chest, and tried to make her forget what he could not know.

#

"You look better the other way," Lucy offered, a sleek hint of sarcasm hanging at the edge of her voice. Rex ruffled his hair one last time, giving it a good shake, and Lucy giggled before he joining her at the edge of the lake. Mid-morning sun glittered and danced on the surface, refracting a few gentle rays neither minded, but would get annoyed at in the wrong mood.

Rex smirked. The comment could have hurt him on some level if he wasn't in such a fantastic mood, and he reached over to press a slow kiss to Lucy's forehead. She could feel his stubble, and she squirmed, which gave him a good excuse to hug her back to his chest. "I think you secretly like me this way, you just won't admit it."

Crossing her arms Lucy played one of her favorite cards to play with Emmet, one that she imagined, in the back of her frazzled mind that really couldn't take her recent actions any longer, Rex would enjoy as well. "You're terrible."

"Nice try, sweetheart."

"I like that name," she murmured softly, taking his hand in her own. It was rough – course and unforgiving, but she imagined that, with time, he would soften up a little more. Not completely, but enough. Her mind, in its state of 'A nuke will land any second now, but I just won the lottery and I'm going to ignore everything else', imagined for a moment that she could have the best of both worlds with Rex: The sweet boy she had known and loved, and the rough, sarcastic personality she owed so much and wanted to give the world to.

"Yeah?"

"Mh-hm." Lucy nodded and snuggled deeper into Rex's arms. What really was the difference between Rex and Emmet, anyway? Emmet was the accident. Anytime guilt panged at her chest, she thought of that. It was so simple. So simple that fear now started to nip at her ribs whenever she felt guilty.

"Lucy…" It felt too good to say her name. She felt too nice, too soft, too perfect. Where was the bomb, Emmet, or maybe Unikitty, whatever was supposed to ruin all of this? No matter how hard he tried, no matter how often he shoved and pushed his mind to forget it, a sense of doom loomed over his figure. Something was supposed to ruin this, that's who he was. Emmet was supposed to catch them. He was supposed to disappear. Lucy was supposed to hate him. Where was the problem?

Everything was just too good. Too safe, too nice, too… perfect.

"Yeah?" Her voice was gentle, it hummed against his chest, and he liked it. He kissed the back of her head, lingering and warm.

"Why don't you hate me?"

She turned around, and he swallowed a thick marble down his throat. Why was she looking at him? Was this the ruining moment? "Rex, you're Emmet. I can't hate you."

"But I've changed." He had to tell her. Thought she probably knew and he certainly knew and goodness knew Emmet knew, he had to tell her, if not to quell the fire that started years ago in his chest. "And…I'm not going to change back."

The woman in his lap paused, as if considering her words. Did she know how his heart was flipping over like a fish dying on land? Did she know how his life depended on her answer? Did she know, or was she just torturing him for the heck of it?

Finally, she moved forward, pressing a warm kiss on his lips, watering down any jagged thoughts he still had. She had already begun to whisper when she pulled back, "Rex, you're Emmet. Somewhere, deep down in that heart of yours is Emmet. The man I fell in love with despite everything. The man who saved the world. The one person who believed in me, forgave me, and stood by me. You're Emmet Brickowski, the guy who loves bouncy castles, Master-building, baking, Unikitty, and me. You love old romantic movies and popcorn. You love mornings but just can't seem to wake up early enough to watch a sunrise on Sunday morning. You love holidays but never stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve." A smile, smug on the front but meaningful, sheepish, and shy underneath overtook her face, and she traced circles on his shoulder as his breath stuck in his throat. "And you love me."

A moment passed.

"I don't know how much of that is still true…" He gathered her up ins his arms, almost protectively, and his voice dropped, husky with emotion as he swallowed the persisting lump in this throat. She tensed at his words, and he added, "…but I know the last part will always be true. No matter what."

She pressed her forehead against his, allowing a slow sigh to melt out. "Good. I love you."

"I love you a lot more."

He kissed her once more, and in that moment, in their minds, in all respects, Emmet didn't even exist.


	9. A Worsening Affair

**A/N: YO YO YO XD, thanks so so much for the reviews! And don't worry, I pinky-promise that I will not abandon this story, I'm seeing this, Remembering You, and Redamancy all the way to the end, updates may just be a while, but I will finish them. :) I'm so glad to know people are still interested in these, it means a lot, thanks!**

_59 hours in…_

"You _what?" _

"I want you to pick Rex!"

As if Lucy's life wasn't complicated enough.

Trickling sunlight rained in and glared through the rose window, depositing a neat plane of Easter-egg-pink evening light where Unikitty stood, almost like a spotlight for the shamed. Her lungs took the opportunity to release their grips as she slid her paw across the grainy, scratched wood floor and out of the light. Cold there, warm here. Only as she grabbed onto a rickety chair and caused it to tremble did she realize how her emotions had leapt from their master to bound across the room around the statue of unmoving that was Lucy.

On some level, Unikitty needed Lucy to say something. To get it over with, to stick the needle, to hate her and finish with it. Yet, it could have taken the rest of their lives and she would have been fine with that. The welcoming, sought-after silence reminded her of putting off her dentist appointment. It was that warm yet juvenile sense: I'll deal with it later. I'll be stronger then. Let me be happy today.

"Why?"

That was infinitely worse.

"Why?" The breath upchucked through her throat and cut it along the way. "How can you ask me that? I could barely figure out what I felt, and now you want a reason for it?!" She was rambling and she knew and it felt _good._

"I'm not mad." Yes, that may have been true, but a volcano is calm before it erupts. "I just want to know why you think I should choose him." Lucy was too calm. Choked whispers and hoarse hollers to run and never look back echoed in the dimly lit, haunted ghost of her eyes, and Unikitty's quivering mass of nerves were seconds away from propelling her out the door. She'd go home, back to Syspocalypstar, where no one knew of the mess they had found in a galactic bin.

And for once, Unikitty did just what her mind told her.

After a final, pleading whimper for help, Unikitty bolted out the weary wooden door that could hardly take a shove, ran into the lobby that took on a kid-like tone in the mature evening sunset, and out the doors into the palpable air. Thick oxygen rushed down her throat and filled every empty space in her body with a vile, hot taste, like heated medicine. She nearly choked, but her scampering footsteps farther from the hotel didn't stop because of the heat, the gnats, or even the tight, biting oxygen in her chest.

"Unikitty!"

Emmet?

Unikitty's steps were calculated down to the centimeter as she turned to face Emmet, though when their eyes met, she wished she had taken so much more time. Bags under his eyes weighed heavier than the sunlight pressing him forward. A muddy, messy black-and-blue splashed beneath his right eye. All the whimsical color had drained from his face, leaving a thin sheet of death behind.

"What happened to you?!" For once, she said the right thing. She felt the right thing at the right time and said the right thing to go along with it.

Emmet held out a hand to stop his best friend as she rushed over to him, seeming especially protective of his eye. "Uh, yeah, y'know how everything's been relatively calm, considering the situation?"

No, not really. "Yes..."

"Well, that's not so true anymore."

Unikitty's ribcage finally threw her bloody, bruised heart on the ground, gave it one final kick, and left it to die.

Now that she was closer, now that she could see him, everything was so much more vivid. The black and blue had tiny scrapes trickling along its sides. His upper arm wore a screaming, biting gnash. Behind his eyes lay quivering fear, and it dispersed among his shoulders until he only shuddered every other moment. His legs were weak. His lips were bleeding. His fists flushed red. Unikitty could draw no other conclusion, even as she desperately bit for anything other than the obvious.

"Did...did Rex..." she didn't want to finish it. She couldn't. Let the weak be the strong.

Holding up his fists, Emmet uttered a sheepish laugh that fell into a mournful chuckle. "Yeah, Rex and I sorta got into a fight. I at least gave him some injury on his shoulder...I think. I'm usually on the receiving end of these things." His pitiable attempt at covering his feelings halted in a choking gasp when he winced, shrugging his arm.

"Ok, come on, let's get you inside." For better or for worse, adrenaline poured like lemonade into Unikitty's bloodstream, forcing her mind away from her opinions and emotions, which had seemed so important just a few minutes ago, and onto Emmet and his injuries.

Pride, pride that always trickled in with her adrenaline, forced her to let Emmet lean on her, despite the height difference impairing the good deed.

They had only made it halfway back to the hotel, hardly posing a challenge for the slowest of animals, when Lucy's cotton-candy hair burst through the door. Even from a distance, even through the desert fog linking around her arms and cutting off her circulation, Unikitty could see the bloodshot horror in Lucy's eyes.

"Emmet!" By the time she had finished his name, Lucy was at his side, hands on his arms. Her eyes bore into his. "What happened to you?"

Emmet froze.

_Your boyfriend happened to me._

_There's something I'm not telling you. _

_And you can't find out._

"I tripped going down a mountain." Dry. His lips, tongue, mouth, they were drier than the desert that cut his feet through his shoes. Unikitty's paws tightened on his arm, and he couldn't blame her. How could he? He was a liar, a liar to his fragile best friend, and a liar to everyone he knew. He deserved everything.

A crossing of emotions played out like a Broadway musical in Lucy's eyes, so clearly even Unikitty could read the doubt, the confusion, the pressing to find the truth. Lucy wouldn't let this go. This was going to end in a fight.

"Fine." But it wasn't fine. Lucy's glare was content but not happy. Her arms crossing over her chest meant she would let it go but always remember it.

Her glare swiveled onto Unikitty, who peddled back, still clutching Emmet's hand like a schoolgirl. "Get him cleaned up, I'll be in my room."

As fast as she had run over to him, it only took her half that time to get inside.

Probably too soon to be safe, Unikitty spun her injured, limping best friend to face her, hollering at a different speed than her mind, "What the heck was that? Why didn't you tell her?"

"I have my reasons."

That was that.

Questions burned. They felt like a boiling pot of water dunked on her head when she was expecting a cool spray of hose water, and she could do nothing about it.

She took him inside, cleaned his wounds as best she could, and sent him to rest in his room, all in mostly silence.

"I... I think I'll stay in a different room tonight," he murmured, like he needed her to hear but couldn't stand that she would.

"Why?"

This time, he didn't even bother answering, instead offering a simple, "Night, Unikitty," and walked out of the frozen first-aid room and to the stairs.

The whole time, all while she had bandaged and fixed and tried to help him, the dark, brooding lull in his eyes looked so familiar, so strange, so...angry, bitter at the world that she had almost called him Rex.

And now, Unikitty was left alone, in the lowest temperatures one could stand, sitting up on a table. Her legs dangled like a child's off the cold metal. That's all she was, really. A child caught in the crosshairs of war, unrequited love, and hate. A child trying to help and share opinions she didn't even understand like an adult would.

Somehow, the frore plains of the white-plaster walls didn't leave her hot tears any different, and they still collected in a tiny puddle on the ground.

Where did they go from here?


End file.
